


Destiny Is a Tricky Business

by silenth



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, BUT WITH POWERS, Emmett has ADHD, F/F, F/M, Not important to the plot but should be canon, Way too many movie quotes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28926273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silenth/pseuds/silenth
Summary: Alice's best friend Betsy has finally fallen in love, but her dream girl is going to prom with Jasper Whitlock. Can Alice help Betsy's dream come true... and maybe engineer a perfect prom for herself in the meantime?
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale, Esme Cullen/Bella Swan
Comments: 9
Kudos: 10





	1. In Which Rosalie and Emmett Impart Their Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> I changed Bella's name to Betsy 'cause I think it fits her better in this story and Elizabeth and Isabella have the same root.

Betsy was in Alice's room trying on one of her latest thrift store finds - a caftan with a vibrant jungle print, complete with toucan and swaying palm trees. It was fitting because they always said they weren't destined to be friends just because their names made them sound like two old ladies in big hats on their way to a church picnic -- but it didn't hurt. 

She posed in the mirror, blowing her teal-streaked brown hair out of her face. "This is like what we'll wear when we're seventy and playing slots in the casino."

"No, at that age," Alice replied, "I'm going to revert to the fashion of our youth and wear pink sweatpants with 'DTF' printed in glitter on the butt."

Betsy caught Alice's eyes in the mirror and they both started to laugh. Alice was wearing head-to-toe black since it was a school day; it made her look dour and serious from the neck down. Only her grin and the mismatched silver and gold earrings that lined her ears captured the real her. 

Betsy started to reply when Alice's computer chimed.

"Gigantor!"

"Ortiz! Hey, Emmett." Alice sat down at her desk and angled the screen so her brother and Betsy could see each other.

"Swanee River! How've you been, it's been ages!"

"Hi, Emmett, I'm good. We miss you!" Betsy tripped her way into Alice's walk-in closet (her family wasn't as rich as her father pretended they were, but she did have a great closet) and closed the door to change into her regular clothes  
.  
Meanwhile Emmett was beaming in his messy college dorm room. She could see Rosalie's underwear-clad butt wiggling in the background, so Alice had a good idea of exactly what had caused Emmett's glow. "Hi, Rosalie's ass!" Alice called.

Rosalie only wiggled harder. Emmett watched her over his shoulder, then turned back to the camera and said, "Hi, Alice!" in a high-pitched demonic sounding voice. 

"Excuse me? I know that's not supposed to be my ass's voice," Rosalie interrupted.

"Hello, Emmett, I love you," he continued.

Alice was used to their banter, but she also knew she had to interrupt it or they would never stop. "How're your practices going, Rose?" 

Rosalie answered by straightening and then bending into a perfect backbend. (Alice was relieved to see she was wearing one of Emmett's t-shirts.) She was a gifted gymnast - not Olympic level, she was too curvy and too tall - but she was competing in the upcoming NCAA gymnastics championship and she was favored to do well, especially in the vault. 

"Only a few weeks left," Emmett cheered, still in his ass voice.

"Once this is over," Rosalie said grimly as she kicked into a handstand and walked away from the camera, "I'm going to find the biggest potato in the world and then I'm going to bake it and then I'm going to cover it in Ranch dressing and _then_ I am going to EAT it."

"Good luck!" Alice called to her as she walked away (still on her hands) to finish getting dressed. 

"Thanks, Alice," Rosalie called back. "Emmett, if you do that voice again, my panties aren't coming back off tonight."

"Stop distracting me, I'm talking to my baby sis," Emmett shot back, his regular (non-ass) voice so affectionate it was clear this back-and-forth was the highlight of his day. 

"Yeah, why are we talking on a Monday anyway, Em? What's up?" Alice flopped down on her bed, placing the laptop on her stomach. 

Betsy scrambled onto the bed next to her, punching a pillow into place behind her back. She was back in her collared shirt and denim skirt, her square black glasses completing her good-girl intellectual look.

"Mom's 50th birthday is coming up next month," Emmett began.

Alice gave him a look of utter amazement and Betsy giggled. "Wow, you remembered! I think this is the first year I haven't had to tell you that."

Emmett had a ton of wonderful qualities and Alice wouldn't have traded him for any other big brother in the world, but keeping track of minor details like term paper due dates, car inspections, and birthdays was never something he could handle. Alice had always taken point on planning big events and Emmett was more than happy to go along with her plans. 

But at some point during their first year of college, Rosalie had convinced him to go back on medication. _Maybe the new pill was finally working,_ Alice thought in surprise. _Weird._

"Yeah, yeah, I'm finally planning ahead, Gigantor. Don't look so amazed. Anyway, I was thinking we could all go in together and get her a day at the spa," Emmett continued. "Or a gun rack."

"A gun rack?" Betsy looked appalled.

"He's quoting again," Rosalie and Alice said in unison. Some days Emmett couldn't remember his homework or his backpack or his house keys, but he could always remember movie quotes.

"Oh. Okay. I was thinking about buying her this old movie, _Make Way for Tomorrow._ We were talking about the other day. It's not on any streaming sites, so I was going to try and find it on DVD," Betsy offered up. She considered Mrs. McCarty her second mom since she and Alice had been best friends for so long.

Rosalie appeared over Emmett's shoulder. She was now wearing pantyhose but topless. Alice and Betsy exchanged a sidelong glance. Alice loved Rosalie, she did, or at least she loved how happy Rosalie made her brother, but she was a lot. Even over Zoom from several states away... a lot.

But from the first moment Emmett saw Rosalie striding down the hall of their high school, her long blond braid swinging at her back, his eyes had changed into little red hearts and they still hadn't changed back. Rosalie and Emmett were sophomores then while Alice and Betsy were freshman, but Rosalie was also a new student, having moved to the area to work and live with her new gymnastics coach. She only did school half-days so she could spend the rest of the time training. 

After the two of them had started dating and entwined almost every waking moment of their lives together, Alice and Betsy debated and wondered about Rosalie. What was it like to be ravishingly gorgeous, graceful and confident? Was it ever a burden? Was Rosalie's casualness about her body the result of being so physically perfect, or did it come from performing crazy-hard routines in front of thousands of people and having every slight movement of her hand or her ankle dissected and criticized or praised?

In any case, Rosalie and Emmett had no modesty separately and certainly none together. She flashed the top of her bare breasts at the camera as she leaned forward to say, "We have to book the spa day soon to make sure they can fit her in on her actual birthday. They do cold-sculpting--"

"My mother doesn't need cold-sculpting, Rosalie," Alice prickled. Okay, she hadn't started planning her mom's birthday yet, but she wasn't going to lose control of the event to her brother and his girlfriend. "Why am I just now hearing about this? I haven't gotten any visions about a spa day!"

Emmett looked up at Rose and Alice thought it looked like he rolled his eyes. "We just decided yesterday, that's why. And we think it's a good idea. Mom deserves a day to herself to relax, Alice."

"Ooh, we could get her one of those hot stone massages," Betsy spoke up. 

"And a facial. Facial is a must," Rosalie insisted.

Alice crossed her arms. "Don't think she might get offended by this? Like, we're saying she's not pretty enough or something? Look, why don't we do what we always do and wait for me to get a vision so I can see if she even wants a spa day and then--"

"The point of presents is to surprise people, Alice! You always cheat and make sure everyone's getting something they're going to like--"

"Excuse me for wanting to make sure people get good gifts instead of that year you were going to buy dad that weird golf hat that he would never use--"

"Well, that is kind of the point of gifts," Betsy interrupted and Alice narrowed her eyes. "Sorry, but you supervise our presents every year and--"

"Alice, the three of us will do the spa and you can get her something else," Rosalie said with a tone of finality in her voice.

"All right, fine, we can do the spa thing," Alice conceded. "But I'm still going to look for something to make sure she'll like it--" Emmett definitely rolled his eyes this time and Rosalie straightened up (Alice could only see perky nipples) so who knew what kind of face she was making -- " _and_ I am going to plan the party!"

"Of course," Emmett agreed. "You always plan the best ones. Do you know what Dad's getting her?" 

Rosalie disappeared again, probably to gloat that she'd gotten her way, Alice thought uncharitably.

"More jewelry from the store, I'm sure. I hope he doesn't get her diamonds again. You think after 25 years of marriage he would realize she hates them."

"You know what this reminds me of?" Betsy realized suddenly. " _Little Women_! The part at the beginning where they're all talking about Christmas. We're totally Little Women!" She rose up on her knees, gesturing excitedly the way she did when she was ranting about one of her favorite books. 

Alice carefully scooched the laptop further away. The number of cell phones and other electronics Betsy had damaged during a literary rant was legendary. 

"Rosalie is obviously Meg because she's the beautiful one, Emmett's Jo--"

"If I'm Jo and Rosalie's Meg that's a _very_ different kind of women's movie."

"Alice is Amy, obviously, because they're both brilliant artists--" Betsy persisted.

Alice was pleased but confused. "Wait, that means you're--"

"Beth," Betsy finished with a flourish, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Clearly."

"Why are you Beth?" Emmett asked. "And if we're going to be a group of four women, can't we be the Golden Girls? I want to be Sophia."

"Because Beth ends up alone," Betsy said. 

Alice frowned at her. Betsy had this crazy idea she was hard to love because she transitioned in seventh grade. There were clearly kids at their school who were madly in love with her but too afraid to ask her out because their school had a higher-than-normal percentage of transphobic idiots. 

"Bets, you are going to have so many great love affairs, it's ridiculous. You're going to be one of those old ladies who writes an epic autobiography about all the hot guys and girls she laid during insane revolutions, while world empires collapsed in flames."

Betsy flopped back down and covered her blushing face with her hands. "You guys know I've never even been kissed. At least you had that thing with Marcus last summer."

"I thought you told me nothing happened," Emmett frowned. 

Alice flicked Betsy's leg out of camera range. " _Barely_ anything, Emmett, and we're not talking about me!"

"Well, I hope you used protection. His whole family is crazy--" 

"This is not about forking Marcus and he can't help who his family is," Alice waved her arms in horror as Betsy started cackling, being the only one who knew the whole story.

Rosalie walked back on camera, dressed in a gorgeous pink dress that suited her creamy complexion and violet-blue eyes. She perched on Emmett's lap, looking every bit like an old Hollywood movie star. "You know what I was thinking," she said, tilting her head so Emmett could nuzzle her neck without smudging her face. "Isn't your prom coming up? You two should go." 

It was a simple statement, offered in a "this couldn't be more obvious" tone of voice, but both Alice and Betsy straightened up and stared at the screen in disbelief.

"To prom?" Betsy gasped, her brown eyes so wide they were almost as big as the lenses of her glasses. 

Alice simply shook her head vehemently, her short, choppy black hair hitting her cheeks. She stopped when she saw Betsy's horror. "Betsy should go!" she amended, grabbing her best friend's hand. "That's a great idea! But not me."

"Why don't the two of you go together?" Emmett suggested. 

"Everyone already thinks we're dating, thanks," Alice said drily. "Besides, our Betsy is in love with another. And I think--no, I _know_ said person likes you too."

"Does not!" Betsy started to insist, already beginning to blush again. 

"I've been trying and trying to get Bets to ask her out, but--"

"Swanee! Tell us!" Emmett was such a romantic, he couldn't help but bubble over at the thought of Betsy finally having a crush who returned her feelings. 

Rosalie studied her carefully, peering into the screen. "Please tell me it's not Moray."

Betsy glared so hard at the camera that even Rosalie was cowed. "I would sooner fall in love with dog shit." She hesitated another moment and then finally seemed to break - love was like that, Alice thought. Too wonderful not to confess. "Esme Trintignant. She only started this year--"

"She's an exchange student from France," Alice took over. "And they're perfect together. She's so, so sweet and funny, and she's beautiful, of course--"

"So beautiful," Betsy whispered, her eyes as awe-struck as they were when she talked about the brilliance of J.R.R. Tolkein or the Brontes. "And kind. She's the kindest person, she's even nice to birds and stray dogs. She worked with me on the recycling initiatives at school, it's how we met."

"Kindness is highly underrated in a partner," Rosalie added, leaning her head against Emmett. He grinned. "So ask her out! Ask her to prom!"

"Exactly my thinking!" Alice pounced. "In fact," she reached for an enamel box on her cluttered bedside table and opened it with a flourish. "I went ahead and bought prom tickets for you guys as an early graduation gift!" She passed them to Betsy, who accepted them with a dumbfounded look. "I was thinking we could do some kind of literary scavenger hunt for your promposal--"

"That's really nice, Alice, but--"

"Betsy, stop worrying! I know she's going to say yes! Like, _know it_ know it."

"Alice, she already has a date." Betsy crumpled into her knees and covered her face. "A guy asked her this morning."

"What?" Alice frowned. She had seen Betsy and Esme at prom; that was how she knew Esme felt the same way about her friend. No one could kiss someone like that unless they did it with their whole heart. "Who?"

"Jasper Whitlock."

**"What?"**

Emmett and Rosalie both jumped and Betsy fell backwards off the bed. 

"Sorry," Alice said in a more subdued voice. "It's just-- _Jasper Whitlock_ asked Esme to the prom?"

"Well, he and Katie broke up," Emmett spoke up. "I was texting with him last month and he mentioned that."

No, this wasn't right at all, Alice thought. Her vision of her own senior prom had been ridiculous (probably the result of the universe eating bad shrimp and giving her the equivalent of clairvoyant diarrhea), but Esme and Jasper? 

They just didn't _go._

She closed her eyes and began to page through the big imaginary photo album where she pasted clips of her visions. On the last pages, the most recent ones, the same image appeared over and over - her and Jasper, laughing in their fancy prom clothes. Jasper spinning her, dipping her. Jasper holding her phone with his long arms so they could get the best angle for their selfies. Jasper gazing down at her with those dark eyes of his, the ones that looked so out of place with his pale skin and blonde hair, and his expression was something that looked hot and tender and almost like it was maybe, possibly (but probably not)--

"Alice!" Emmett said, alarmed. "What's wrong? What is it?"

Betsy, Emmett, and even Rosalie knew that when Alice got a certain look on her face, the only thing on her mind was the future. They believed her - well, she was pretty sure Rosalie believed her, anyway - and that was the most precious thing to Alice.

Alice opened her eyes and turned to Betsy. "Okay, I've seen you and Esme at prom so I know it happens. You wear that blue dress we found at Goodwill, the one I made you buy even though you kept saying you had nowhere to wear it. You know how cute you look in blue--"

"Alice, the point, please, I'm having dinner with my parents tonight!" Rosalie interrupted. 

"Okay, Rosalie," Alice snapped, barely resisting sticking out her tongue. "You rush a miracle woman, you get shitty miracles. And, the other part of the prom vision, which probably won't happen because you know I see weird things sometimes, and this is the weirdest yet--"

"Weirder than the time you saved Mr. Black when his house burned down?"

"That wasn't weird, Emmett," Betsy objected, driven to defend her friend's honor. "It was heroic!"

"He's quoting--" 

"Weirder than that time Michael Jackson's sister came over to our house to use the bathroom?"

"A movie again," Rosalie finished. "Let her finish, babe."

"Betsy, we have to make you watch movies that _aren't_ based on novels," Emmett added, not for the first time. "Now, what did you see, Alice?"

"I had a vision," Alice put on her serious foretelling voice, the one that practically demanded she dig out her turquoise silk turban. Where did she put that thing anyway? "Of _Jasper Whitlock_ and I going to prom together." She stared at them all, waiting for a big reaction, but they just watched her. Finally after a few seconds, she clapped her hands to her cheeks and stretched her mouth into a Macaulay Culkin-esque scream.

"What's so weird about that?" Emmett said finally. "Jasper's a good guy. He can take you and Betsy and this French chick can go together." 

"Emmett, did you put ketamine on your cereal this morning? Why would Jasper Whitlock agree to go to prom with Mary Alice McCarty?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Betsy asked, loyal to the end. "You're smart and fun and creative--"

"Is everyone-- Jesus! Okay, Jasper's, like, the most perfect guy in school," Alice rubbed her temples, trying to figure out exactly what her friends didn't get about the weirdness of the situation. She might as well be expecting Harry Styles to take her, it was that hopeless. Not that she cared, she and Jasper had barely ever spoken to each other. They would never have exchanged a single word if he and Emmett hadn't been friends. "He's a star athlete, he's student body president, his grades are perfect, he's gorgeous, he dated Katie Finnegan, one of like ten people in the world who might rival Rosalie for looks--"

"Ha!" was Emmett's response to that.

"It sounds like you really hate him," Rosalie added sarcastically.

"It's not a matter of hate, we're from totally different universes. It's like me going out with Harry Styles-- or a fish. Jasper is like a fish and I'm a bird, okay, and now you've got me quoting like Emmett!"

Emmett ducked off screen and reappeared holding a bag of chips. "I need brain food 'cause I don't know what the fork you're talking about, sis."

"Me neither," Betsy added.

"You don't find the idea of me and _Jasper Whitlock_ at prom weird? 'Cause I'm pretty sure everyone else in school will." She wrapped a strand of her shoulder-length dark hair around her finger, twisted and let it unravel. Repeat, repeat. "Besides, he would never in a billion years agree to go with me."

"Will you stop saying his name like that? And you're the one that had the visions," Emmett reminded her, feeding Rosalie one chip at a time so she didn't smudge her lipstick.

"Yes, Alice, don't you always say that we should trust in your visions because they allow you to pick the most optimal version of the future?" Rosalie raised a delicately arched eyebrow.

_I knew that would get thrown back in my face one day._

"But I don't want to go with him!" Alice persisted. "He's too-- shiny. He's probably empty behind the eyes, and soulless. Like all the douchebags at that school."

"What are you talking about? He's always been very nice to you," Emmett said again, that rare but potent annoyed set to his lips. "He always said hi to you when he came over. He told me to tell you hey the last time I talked to him."

"We go to the same school - why is he telling you to tell me hi? And why are you still texting him anyway?"

"He said you never make eye contact with him at school," Emmett said with a raised eyebrow. "And I text him because we're friends. I don't think he has a lot of people he can talk to."

"He has SO many friends, Emmett. Are you even my brother?" she exclaimed wildly. "Are you calling from another dimension right now?" 

He rolled his eyes and went back to gobbling chips.

"If you want my advice," Rosalie began, "I think you two should do go for it. Betsy, walk up to Esme and ask her out. Tell her you've liked her forever but you were too shy to admit it. Alice, go to prom with Jasper or don't - but you should go!"

"Yeah," Emmett added. "Finish one of the dozens of dresses you've got in that closet and show it off."

Alice let go of her hair and covered her face with both her hands. How could they be getting this so WRONG? "The point of prom is to celebrate the end of high school All I want is to get out and be free - why would I voluntarily spend more time with people I hate when I'm so close to never seeing them again?"

"Ditto," Betsy added, tracing a finger on Alice's vintage quilt bedspread and looking dejected "Alice and I will stay here and finish our latest K-drama. It's not a big deal, even."

"What about Esme, Swanee? Don't you want the chance to go to prom with her?" Emmett asked gently. 

Alice hadn't seen her friend look so depressed since seventh grade, when their whole grade got a lecture on what transgender meant and how unacceptable bullying was in the auditorium, and they turned and whispered and watched her the whole time. 

She bit her lip, hard, and started blinking rapidly. "If she said yes to Jasper, she's not going to agree to go with me! If Jasper broke up with her, maybe, but why would he do that when she's so, so wonderful--"

"Alice?" Rosalie asked pointedly. 

Alice stared at the ceiling for a long moment, trying to see what would happen if Betsy didn't go. Was this going to haunt her friend for the rest of their lives? Of course, her mind was silent on the topic, offering the same visions of the two of them at prom, seeming so happy with Esme and Jasper. She glanced back at the screen just in time to see Rosalie give her brother a pointed look.

"You know, Alice," Emmett said slowly, "all the things we've gone along with because of your visions - isn't this one time you should go along with them, even if you don't want to?"

Alice glanced from him to Betsy -- they were the two people who knew her best in the world, aside from her mom, and they were both looking at her like... like she should be the one to fix this somehow? 

"You guys, what do you want me to do? Go to Jasper and ask him to dump Esme and take me instead? He would laugh in my face! And for the last time, I don't want to go to prom! Why would I waste one of my beautiful dresses on Moray and Katie and those other awful girls?"

"Because you spent, like, three and a half years letting them change you--"

"The fuck, Emmett? No, I didn't!"

"And this is your chance to show them that they didn't," he continued, talking over her in his booming dad-voice. 

Rosalie was nodding in that superior way of hers. So help her, if she found out they were sitting around discussing her, she would never warn them about a traffic ticket again.

"Now go to that prom and spin like a little pinwheel! Live your dream! **GET IT!!!!"** Emmett's pep talk finished by him spraying the camera lens with half-chewed potato chip remnants and Alice resisted the urge to wipe her own screen clean.

 _What the hell was going on?_ Alice asked herself again. _They're away at college for one year and now they want to change everything?_

Rosalie had moved closer to wipe the lens clean with the bottom of her shirt. Once she reappeared, she began, in a measured tone, "You know, Alice, most people go through something in high school. I got teased for not being 'soft' enough and having a six-pack--"

"Being the hottest woman who ever turned a handspring," Emmett corrected, resting his head against her arm. Rosalie indulged herself for a moment and bent to kiss his black curls. 

"But I never cared. Emmett and I went to prom and we danced and we had a great time. If people thought I shouldn't wear a sleeveless dress, or Emmett shouldn't have worn a purple tux--"

"That tux was so Prince, it was insane!" Alice corrected. She was pissed at him right now, but she would always stick up for her brother on that topic.

"So I think you should consider your vision again," Rosalie finished.

Emmett quickly added, "You know they always come for a reason, Alice. And you always say things work out better when you listen. And anyway, before you changed -- sorry, before you decided to 'stop wasting your genius on idiots'-- Jasper said he liked the way you dressed."

"No, he did not," Alice replied witheringly. He must really think she's an idiot if he's trying to sell her that line of bull.

"He did! He liked that whatever it was - cuckoo hat." Alice gave him a confused look. "With the feather, you know!"

"Oh." Alice sighed, looking at her closet again, where her cloche hat and her turban and all her other crazy clothes were packed up in boxes. A closet full of the black clothes she had worn to school every day since freshman year. "I loved that hat." She sighed and looked at the fragile hope in Betsy's eyes. "All right, maybe I'll think about it."


	2. Weirdest Way to Get a Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is a far far better thing..." Etc.
> 
> Alice has to break up Jasper and Esme so Betsy can ask Esme to prom. But how will Jasper react to this? And will Esme say yes?

Alice stared at her eyes in her rearview mirror for a long moment, trying to find _herself_ inside them. Then she looked out at the front door of his house. The sun hadn't set yet, but he had already turned the porch light on, and it glinted off the golden doorknob. Like his hair, she thought with a grimace. Literally, he was a golden boy who lived in a golden palace. 

She should have made Emmett drive down from Penn and come with her, if he wanted to see this happen so bad. He hadn't let up with the texts since their video chat. _Have you asked him yet? What's the hold up, get the lead outta your pants! What about Betsy?_ And finally, the one that had really frightened her - _Do you want me to call Jasper and explain all this for you?_

She shuddered, unable to imagine what _that_ conversation would have been like.

Then she started twisting her hair again, going over the for and against arguments in her mind for the ten thousandth time. Maybe they were right - things did work out better when she followed what she saw in her mind, even if it seemed ridiculous at the beginning. 

It had freaked Alice out when she accepted she could actually see the future. She'd always thought they were daydreams. Okay, granted, they seemed way more intense than everyone else's daydreams, the way they sucked her out of the world and left her blind, deaf, and numb until they released their hold. And everybody wants to believe that they're special, that they're chosen, blessed with some kind of superpower. Why would it actually happen to her, Mary Alice " _don't_ -call-me-Mary-Alice-it-sounds-like-a-nun" McCarty? 

But once she embraced it, she made it her purpose. Maybe she went over the top sometimes, imposing her futures on Emmett and Betsy and her mom, doing too much to guide the resolution of things, but she liked being special and she wanted things to be perfect, like they were in her head. Speaking of which--

"Betsy," she reminded herself as she climbed out of the car. "You're doing this for Betsy." She smoothed her black dress and the black leggings she wore underneath as she walked up to his door, feeling the soles of her feet tingle with every step. It was the same feeling Alice got when she looked out of high windows - her body warning her to step back from the brink.

She thought about obeying the urge, running back to the car and slamming the door, and then her mind flickered with another flash of Jasper Whitlock's face, looking down at her in his navy blue suit and tie... 

_Him. Him. Him_ sparkled across her brain when she thought of that vision, so loud it overpowered her nervous heartbeat in her ears, and when she closed her eyes, she saw that word in big neon letters set to one hundred percent saturation.

She shook her head and replied to whatever force was trying to speak to her. "This isn't about me! This is about Betsy and Esme. They're going to have a great time, Betsy's finally in love and found someone who'll appreciate how wonderful she is." She is definitely not doing this because of Jasper Whitlock's dark eyes or his devastating grin or--or--or. She hadn't wasted a thought on him before she got this stupid vision!

Alice rang the doorbell with a silver-painted fingernail and stood back, shaking the long sleeve of her dress over her hand. It was already promising to be a sticky summer and it was only April, but she got cold when she was nervous. And she was so freaking nervous right now--

He opened the door and looked out, then down. His head jerked back in surprise. "Hey. Are you having car trouble or something?" 

"Hey, Jasper. No, I actually came by to talk to you about something."

They stared at each other for a moment and the strangest thing happened - it was almost like both their masks slipped off. Alice had glanced at him in school for years and seen nothing but blankness or a practiced smile, but now he looked annoyed and distracted.

She knew Jasper was observant and quiet, always the one in the group who studied people out of the corner of his eye. He had a preternatural ability to get along with everyone. Even among the various cliques and tribes that battled it out in the jungle of their high school, there was no one who really disliked Jasper Whitlock. She had a hunch that must have been important to him so that was where she had kick-started her plan. 

The genesis of her big idea: what would he do to keep that reputation intact?

Meanwhile, Alice had put on her own practiced smile on to get through tonight. She'd resolved herself to doing whatever she had to in order to achieve her goal, but the longer he stared at her, the more she wanted to reach out and tweak his nose. The feeling that she was seeing behind his mask was too tempting to ignore.

Also - he wasn't even going to invite her in?

"Can I come in?" she said finally, a little rudely and walked forward until she was an inch from the front of his t-shirt.

He didn't respond but he did open the door a tiny amount, so she slipped inside.

"What do you want to talk about, Alice?" Jasper asked, his mask back in place.

Alice was looking around, trying to keep her mouth closed. "Your house is really nice," she said, hedging the real answer and taking in the massive high-ceilinged entryway. Even when Emmett was around, she had never been invited to his house before. Jasper wasn't much for throwing big raging parties. In fact, from what she had overheard in the cafeteria, he was staying home alone tonight instead of going to one. 

"You drove over here on a Friday to tell me that?" he asked, his hands on his hips.

She shrugged, moving to the sideboard, which was covered with family photos. Most were of a guy with reddish brown hair. He had Jasper's eyes and his practiced smile, but that was pretty much the only resemblance. She remembered vaguely that he had a much older brother who was, what, a musician or something? 

"No, I needed to tell you-- ask you something," she amended.

She kept studying the pictures. Maybe it would be easier to say if she didn't look at him. From what she could tell, his family was rich (duh - their house made that obvious) and went on vacations a lot. She picked out his blonde head in photos taken in Switzerland and New Zealand and Japan and Chile, noticed how he always had the same expression in every shot and gradually grew taller and broader. In most of his younger photos, he was with an older gray-haired lady, who kept her arm around Jasper while his parents and his brother stood in a tight group a few feet away.

"Okay, what is it?" Jasper prodded her at last. 

"You're going to prom with Esme Trintignant, right?"

His forehead wrinkled and he shrugged. "Yeah. Why?"

"Why'd you ask her?"

"Alice. Why are you here?" he asked impatiently, moving back to the door like he wanted to open it and usher her outside.

"Are you in love with her?"

He didn't respond but the flash of emotion on his face gave her the answer - no, definitely not love. Her shoulders relaxed - she wouldn't have gone through with this if it turned out they were in love with each other and she had never picked up on it. 

"Okay. So... I need you to call her and dump her so she can go with someone else."

He gave her a look of pure horror, like she had pulled down her pants and shit on the beautiful marble entryway in front of him, and she swallowed hard, keeping her expression serious.

"Excuse me?" he said at last.

"I need you to call her--"

"I heard you the first time! But you cannot be serious. Prom is tomorrow, Alice!" He advanced on her, sounding like a clap of thunder. 

Her traitorous little heart quickened its beating. Okay, he was sort of perversely hot when he actually felt emotions and didn't come off like an automaton version of a Perfect High School Student.

"Esme's going to be devastated if I call and break up with her tonight! And why would I agree to do that?" He crossed his arms and glared at her. 

"First, she won't be devastated. No offense, but I don't think she even wants to go with you, really, but she won't say yes to who she really wants to go to unless you break up with her--" He looked utterly bewildered trying to follow this. "So I came up with a story we can tell her to save face and then, as soon as you do it, B--this person will be there to ask her to prom and it'll all work out." Alice clasped her hands together and grinned at him, feigning a confidence she didn't really feel.

He tilted his head, still glaring. "And why would I agree to do this? You never answered that one."

"Because I know you were the one who reported Coach Rogan buying steroids for the baseball team."

All the tension fell out of his face for an instant, leaving him as blank-looking as a whitewashed wall. He recovered quickly, pasting on a bemused smile like this was some big joke she was playing on him. "What? Why would I do that when I'm _on_ the baseball team?" 

"Because it's a rule. And you hate it when people break rules. You never cheat, even when everyone else in class does. I have gone to school with you since second grade, you know," she reminded him.

"So you're blackmailing me to fuck up Esme's life?" His jaw worked as he stared at her, his eyes going flat and cold. She'd never seen him look at anyone like that before and she squared her shoulders in her baggy dress. 

"I told you, it's not going to mess up her life! I'm not trying to hurt Esme, I actually like _her,_ " she muttered.

"There's no proof." 

She noticed he wasn't denying it anymore, which was evidence enough, even if she didn't know for a fact that he did. She had _seen_ it, after all. She had wondered why at the time - Coach Rogan was a really popular coach at their school and the firing/steroids thing had been a huge scandal a few months back, but Alice could care less about baseball, especially now that Emmett wasn't on the team.

It wasn't until she decided to blackmail Jasper that the vision made sense. She watched him fume silently, keeping his gaze locked to her like she was a bug he was going to pin to a sheet of paper. 

There were only a few weeks of school left now, but if anyone else found out about the part Jasper had played in the coach getting fired, he would have a miserable time of it. There was a good chance some of his friends wouldn't speak to him again.

"You know," she said, straining for nonchalance, "Coach Rogan getting fired was a really big deal. Weren't Garrett and Alec and all the guys on the team really upset about it? Weren't they on a manhunt through the school to figure out who ratted--"

"Okay!" His voice rang out like a shot. "Like I said, you have no proof."

"I doubt Coach Rogan would need any if I called him and said you did it," she said, raising her eyebrows at him. The ex-coach was living in a shitty apartment out by the airport now (at least in her visions he was), working at his brother-in-law's carwash and still very eager to find out who'd dropped the dime on his side business and ruined his career. 

Jasper leaned one arm against the wall, looking down at his reflection in the shiny tile while he considered his options. "Fine," he said at last. "I'll tell her I can't go with her. You know," he looked up, shaking his head at Alice, "I always thought you were an okay person, Alice, but this is a really shitty thing you're doing."

She shrunk a little at the coldness in his eyes, but she felt her vision of Betsy and Esme's happiness growing stronger by the moment. _You're not doing this for yourself, you're doing it for them._ "I knew about it when you first ratted, you know. And I never said anything." 

"Is that a fact? How did you know?"

"Don't you want to hear the rest of my plan?" she countered. Even after all her experience with visions, she still hadn't found a good way to explain them to people for the first time. _There I was, taking a bath and trying to finish_ A Light in August _for class, and then I saw you on a burner phone, locked in your room, calling the cops and giving them the number of the locker where Coach Rogan was keeping all the steroids and then I woke up and the water was freezing and I was all white and pruny._ Okay, sure.

Jasper whirled away from her without another word, heading back into the house. The rooms off the main entryway were dark as Alice followed him down the hall. She glanced into them as she passed - everything in the house looked expensive and clean and new (they weren't much for antiques, apparently), but cold, like no one had lived in any of the rooms for a long time. He finally slammed through one door and led her into a den. 

It was as fancy as the rest of the house, with a huge big-screen TV and equally huge leather furniture that looked like it would eat her alive, but this scene definitely didn't look like the way she imagined Jasper Whitlock spending his night. For one thing, there were cheap beers, three of a six pack, on the coffee table, and someone was in the process of rolling a joint. 

She had always pictured him spending studying or watching C-SPAN or hanging out with the other popular kids at a party. Reading to small children in a hospital if he felt like being altruistic, having sex with some beautiful, cold-eyed girl if he didn't. 

True, there was a stack of textbooks on the corner of the coffee table, and his laptop was open, but clearly the focus of his night was more on losing his mind than enriching it.

Alice peered at the screen when she noticed the website for Brown University pulled up on it. She would be attending the Rhode Island School of Art and Design in the fall, also in Providence, but she had heard through the grapevine that Jasper was going to Stanford.

He flung himself on the couch. Noticing her gaze, he slammed the laptop shut and she looked up at the ceiling innocently. 

"Well?" he asked at last. "What else are you going to blackmail me to do? Skip prom and help you rob a bank or something?"

Alice fought back a grimace. This part of the plan would really suck. "Well, I thought-- you're right, we don't want to hurt Esme's feelings--"

He scoffed.

"So we have to tell her a good story about why you're cancelling on her the night before prom. I thought you could tell her that you fell in love with someone else and you have to take her, because it's the last dance of your whole high school career, and let her down easy." He opened his mouth and Alice added quickly, "And then as soon as you do, the person she really wants to go with will be there to ask her!"

"Who am I supposed to be taking?" was all he said, his mouth a tight, grim line and his dark gaze implying he already knew the answer. 

"Me."

"You?" A single syllable had never sounded colder.

"Yes."

"I'm supposed to tell her I just fell in love with you?" His tone made that sound like the least appealing prospect he had ever heard and Alice felt a little hurt. Which was ridiculous, but undeniable. 

"You dated Katie Finnegan, who's cold and hateful and ignorant for two years and you can't pretend to like me for one night? Anyway," she closed her eyes briefly because that wasn't the point. "All we have to do is go to prom for an hour, maybe two, and pretend to like each other. You should be good at that. Then we can leave and you'll never have to speak to me again."

"Won't Esme notice that our great love only lasted for one weekend?"

"No," Alice said, crossing her arms defensively. "She and her date will be so happy together, she'll never think about it again."

"You can stop saying 'her date,' by the way. I know it's Betsy Swan." He folded his own arms in imitation.

"How--" She snapped her mouth closed.

"That's the only person you'd be willing to do all this for. Isn't it?" he pushed when she didn't respond.

Alice wasn't sure if that was a dig at her being relatively unpopular or not, so she didn't respond. 

"So you're going to do it?" she asked instead.

"I said I would, didn't I?" He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his phone. "What, you want to watch me call her now--"

"No, no," Alice flew across the room and grabbed his hand, wrapping her fingers around his. "You have to give Betsy time to get over there, so she can be prepared to ask her as soon as you're off the phone!" 

He moved his eyes from her hand to her face and Alice's neck started to burn. She dropped his hand and stepped away. Her fingers were actually burning too, his skin was that warm and his fingers that wide-- She moved her hand so he couldn't see it and shook it. _Stupid sensitive skin._

"Promise me you'll actually do it," she said desperately. "My best friend's future happiness depends on it. Swear on," she wracked her brain - what did you make someone like Jasper swear on? His perfect straight white teeth? "Who was that old lady with you in all those pictures out in the entryway?"

"She was my nanny when I was a kid. Why?"

"Okay," Alice nodded, "swear on her life."

"If I said I'm doing it, Alice, I'm doing it. I'm not swearing on Louise's life!" He looked annoyed at the idea that he wouldn't keep his word, but he still looked angry too, his cheeks flushed with emotion, so she couldn't be sure. 

"Okay, let me call her real quick." She threw herself over the arm of the chair and sunk into buttery soft leather. "Betsy?"

"Hey!" Her best friend answered on the first ring. From the pitch and tone of her voice, she sounded like she was on her third cappuccino and her nails had been bitten down to nubs. "What did he say? Is he mad? Is he gonna do it?"

"Yes and yes." Alice eyed him and he narrowed his eyes at her, shaking his head. She had the perverse urge again to make a face at him, or reach out and muss up his perfect blond hair. "He said he would. What time is it?"

"Um, like seven-fifteen."

"Okay, don't go over there til 7:30. She's French, she eats dinner late. He'll call her at 7:45 and then as soon as she gets off the phone, you should ask her what happened and then start comforting her and say, 'He's an idiot but I'm the luckiest girl in the world, because I came over here tonight hoping I could convince you to go with me' and then she'll say--"

"Alice, I--

"Also, wear that polka-dotted skirt, you know the one, and barrettes. Sparkly ones. And--"

"Alice." Betsy was quiet but her voice sounded more nervous than before. "You know, I can-- actually, never mind. Thanks, Alice. I'll get dressed and head over there in a few minutes."

"Betsy," Alice tried to sit up a little, the chair making a sucking sound every time she moved like it wanted to swallow her up. "What is it? Tell me." She twisted away from Jasper, moving her phone to her other ear. 

Betsy hesitated again before she responded. "Okay, I feel awkward bringing this up when you're doing me such a big favor and I really, really, _really_ appreciate it, Alice, not to mention you're my best friend and I love you--"

"Bets--"

"But sometimes," she hurried on, "you get a little too detailed in your advice, you know? Like, sometimes people want to figure their futures out on their own, even if you've already seen them. Like the present thing. And I know you only do it with the best intentions because you want things to work out perfectly for me and I love you for that, I love you so much, Alice... Alice? Are you mad?"

She was, in fact, mad, and more than a little hurt. Part of her wondered if the universe had sent out a mass e-mail alerting everyone to the fact that it was Shit On Alice Month, but the other part of her-- well, maybe Betsy had a point. Maybe that was what Emmett and Rosalie had been trying to tell her the other night, too.

Still, did she have to say it now, on the phone while Alice was sitting in front of _Jasper Whitlock_ and he was _staring_ at her? 

"Okay," Alice said finally. "Love you too, Bets. Text me once she says yes, okay?"

"Alice, I--"

But Alice hung up. 

Jasper had moved forward on the couch, his elbows on his knees as he resumed rolling the joint. He was glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, and she tried to put on as good a cover as he did. "She really appreciates it, Jasper, so you know. Betsy is shy about asking people out but she and Esme are going to be so happy together. Much better than the two of you," she couldn't help adding.

"And what about you and me?" He lifted the paper to his lips, his eyes on hers as he carefully licked the edge. 

She looked away. Truthfully, after the way he had reacted to the proposition, she couldn't imagine how her vision of him looking down at her with that very particular tender expression would ever be actualized. "I know you're, like, physically repulsed at the idea of going out with me--"

"What?" he interrupted. He paused in the process of rolling the end of the joint closed and stared at her. "What I'm repulsed by is being blackmailed into dumping a perfectly nice girl the day before our date. Before tonight, I didn't have any problem with you, Alice."

"Yeah, because we're such good friends," she twisted the hem of her dress in one hand and watched him study her. 

He half-shrugged. "Okay, not friends exactly, but we're friendly. Or we were. I thought?" He looked confused. 

Well, he did say hi in the hallway, Alice thought. Maybe he considers that a friendship. He was the nicest of Emmett's friends about stuff like that, he always remembered her name. She probably couldn't really expect more than that. She was romantically invisible to basically every boy in school, and now she had damaged whatever passive barely-formed friendship (acquantainceship?) she and Jasper had. 

"I guess I'm confused because I didn't think you and Betsy even cared about dances. Neither of you ever go. Why is it so important to go to this one?"

"I don't go because no one asks me. Ever," she shot back, then bit her tongue, literally. She watched the wince in his eyes. "I guess it's a good thing school is almost over, I am toe-up. Your stock will plummet once people see you with me."

"What? You blackmail me and now I'm supposed to feel sorry for you? If you wanted to go to a dance, why didn't you just ask someone? Or go by yourself?"

"You know, it's almost like we go to two different high schools, Whitlock. I've never once gotten to feel like I belong, like I was good enough to be there. The few people who know my name--" 

"People know your name, Alice."

"--think I'm a freak because I laugh at the wrong times or because I'm spacey or I talk too much sometimes or whatever. Why would I put myself out there and ask someone just to get laughed at and humiliated? 'The only winning move is not to play.'"

He had lit his joint during their conversation and taken a hit off it. He begrudgingly offered it to her once he finished, but she waved him away. There was enough strange phenomenon occurring in her brain without throwing anything else into the mix. She didn't even like to take aspirin. 

"You know, you're not as disliked as you think you are, but this is the weirdest way to get a date I've ever seen." He took another hit and then laid it down on a fancy porcelain plate covered with the remnants of what looked like a chili cheese hotdog. "So what do you anticipate happening at the prom, just so I can get a clear picture of what to expect? Are people going to _Carrie_ you or something since you're supposedly so hated?"

"Well, for one thing, when Moray and Katie see Mary Alice McCarty come in with-- what's your middle name?"

He scowled. "Edward."

"I thought that was your brother's name?"

"It is," he said through gritted teeth. 

"Oh." She shrugged. "Well, when Moray and Katie see Mary Alice McCarty and Jasper Edward Whitlock walk in together, they're probably going to turn into pillars of salt and dissolve in a hard rain. Then you'll pretend to like me and we'll dance together a few times. Betsy will be so thrilled she'll be floating off the ground and then they'll crown Katie and Alec the Queen and King of the kingdom of crap that is our high school and then we'll go home." 

She watched him close to see if he reacted to the mentions of Katie and Alec (Katie being his ex-girlfriend and Alec his ex-best friend, the shortstop to his pitcher on the baseball team that Coach Rogan no longer 'roided-up), but he didn't seem to care. "Don't worry that I'll expect you to kiss me or something, Jasper. I know boys like you don't notice girls like me."

Jasper had closed his eyes and leaned back - either an attempt to enjoy his high or drown her out or both, but now he opened his eyes and sat up, frowning. "Alice, no offense, but get off the cross. I have my own shit going on right now, okay? I'm not really in the mood to go to prom with anyone, if you want to know the truth. I have to put in an appearance because I'm student body president and I knew Esme didn't have a date so I asked her. Besides, have you considered what if you go and everything is fine and no one says anything to you, and you still don't feel like a part of everything? Most times you don't, you know," he said in a quiet voice. "Even if it seems like you do."

She blinked in surprise. "Well... then I'll have the satisfaction of showing up with the most popular guy in school and rubbing it in everyone's faces," she said at last, and he raised his dark blonde eyebrows at that. "'It's a little childish and stupid," she quoted to him, "but then, so is high school.'"

He almost smiled at that before he caught himself. "Okay, Ferris. We'll go to the fucking prom. It's 7:30, I should call Esme," he said, frowning down at his phone. "You better be right that she's not going to get upset by it-- Hey, Esme. Yeah, I know - actually that's what I called to talk to you about. I feel like a complete scumbag douche asshole doing this - it means something like raclure de bidet ( _of course, he speaks French,_ Alice thought) - No, I am, Esme. And I'm sorry. I've been hanging out with Alice McCarty - Yeah, the short girl, Betsy's friend. And I'm-- I think I'm in love with her." He sounded breathless and amazed but then he glanced up and met Alice's eyes, and she flinched at the mocking she saw there. "So I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I took her to prom? Just because it's our very last school dance and it would mean so much to us if we got to go--"

Alice tuned out the rest of his conversation and folded her knees up to her chin. Her romantic experience thus far had been limited to a summer fling with Marcus, who'd come to town to visit her next-door neighbors, who also happened to be his batshit crazy uncle and his mysterious aunt who may or may not be a corpse in the tower bedroom.

No guys at school had ever asked her out. Betsy was convinced it was because everyone thought they were dating, and her mom said it was probably because Emmett was so huge (the exact opposite of her in size, God's great joke to make her 4'10" and him 6'10") and known to be protective of his younger sister. 

But Alice couldn't help but feel that it was something about her. Maybe she was just physically unappealing to guys. At least high school guys, she amended. Once she was in RISD surrounded by artists like her, surely someone there would see something beautiful in her. That was the great thing about art and artists, the way it celebrated the tiniest beautiful details in places and animals and things and people. 

Anyway, on top of her self-confidence issue, there was the problem of her visions. How could she sit across from a guy at Applebee's when she might, at any point, see his grandpa dying, or him getting caught cheating on an algebra test? It was weird enough doing it with friends, which was probably why she didn't have many, aside from Betsy and her brother (and by extension, Rosalie). Was she supposed to tell her date about it or not? And if so, when? And how? There were no dating guides for the confused teenage clairvoyant so she had stayed on the sidelines. It exempted her from a lot of heartache, but now here she was, getting shit on by a cute guy and feeling completely unlovable and gross.

"Okay," he said finally, tossing his phone onto the cushion next to him and picking up the joint and lighter again. Alice jumped, but he didn't notice. "It's over. She didn't cry but she kept asking if it was something she'd done wrong. You better be right about her and Betsy."

"I am. It's working out exactly like I planned." 

He blew a smoke ring toward the TV and glanced at her again. He was still angry but at least the pot was dulling it. "Really? And who died and made you god?"

"Wish I knew," Alice muttered. Suddenly she felt deeply and sincerely tired. The smoke was making her eyes sting and she would have to spend tomorrow night with a guy who despised her and a roomful of other people who either hated her or never noticed her--

She took a deep breath and held it. _And Betsy and Esme,_ she thought again. _Their happiness is going to fill up the room and make it all worth it. And soon Emmett will be home for the summer._

 _Betsy loves you. Emmett loves you. Your mom loves you. Your grandma loves you._ She touched her four rings, one for each of them, and the fifth for herself, over and over, reciting their names. 

"Normally when people's plans work out, people are happy, Ferris," Jasper said, turning toward her and taking in her tense and twisted-up body language. "You know, Esme was also asking how the two of us had met because she's never seen us together. I was thinking - shouldn't we make an appearance somewhere before prom, to make this seem a little more believable?"

"Okay," she smiled, her sweetness tinged with sarcasm. "Let's go on a practice date to get all the awkward out of the way, and we'll practice conversation and dancing--"

"I didn't say anything about dancing!" Jasper protested.

"But we'll have to dance at prom, right? Don't you want to teach me how to do a foxtrot or a waltz or something so I don't embarrass you?"

He closed his eyes again. "How do you know I know how to dance?"

"Don't you?" 

He opened his eyes and sighed. "Okay, yes. My mom made me learn when I was a kid. But I'm still not taking you dancing!"

"Of course not. Don't go to the trouble of digging out your suit for me."

"Speaking of which, Esme told me to wear blue, so that's the one I got dry-cleaned and the dance is tomorrow so--"

"That's fine," Alice waved it off. She had already seen that ages ago. She was going to wear black, that was her trademark at school, and those colors didn't really go together, but then--

"Let me guess, you're wearing black?"

She glanced back at him in surprise. "So?"

He flickered his eyes up and away, an almost-but-not-quite eye roll.

"Jasper! What the fork is wrong with the way I dress?"

He eyed her black long-sleeved dress and pants, the tiny pearls that made up her choker and her dangly earrings, hand-made from silver charms she'd found at an estate sale. "Isn't the kind of situation where I say something and then you get mad at me for it?"

"I'm going to be mad at you either way so you might as well say it." 

Clothes were a sore spot with Alice. She had started out high school dressing the way she felt inside - bright colors and mismatched patterns, her own intuitive sense of style. A purple suede jacket paired with sequined thigh-high boots. Striped yellow bellbottoms and feather earrings. A ruffled 1980s wedding gown cut up and paired with fishnets. A short off-the-shoulder red dress and a red cloche hat with a peacock feather in it -- the one Emmett claimed Jasper liked, though he certainly had never said anything at the time.

Funny, because that outfit had been the nail in her coffin freshman year. Moray and Katie and their third wheel of the week usually waited by the door for her to come in. The day of the hat, they weren't there and she had thought maybe they had given up and moved on to someone else, like her mother told her they would. And then, when she walked into her first class, she heard the squeal of giggles, so much worse to her than the noise of brakes or ambulances. 

"Oh my god!" Katie exclaimed. 

"Look at her feather, she looks like a pimp!" 

"She looks disgusting. Like anyone wants to see her gross bony legs." That had been Moray. She was always the most direct, with her crisp, carrying voice.

"Yeah, I know," Katie agreed quickly. "She's so skinny, it can't be normal."

"It's not," Moray declared. "I guess her parents don't love her enough to get her help. Or they're in denial. But really, someone should tell her," she continued as Alice sat at her desk and pretended not to hear, "to cover up at school so we don't all lose our appetites and end up looking like her."

When she went home that day, Alice buried all her weird clothes and started sewing basic black pants and dresses for herself. It isn't worth it, she told her mom and Emmett and Betsy when they protested. There's no point in wasting my brilliance on these people. 

But it really meant they had won, and she knew it as well as they did.

Jasper propped his feet up on the coffee table, still studying her. "I think you dress like you think you're ugly."

Her eyes squeezed shut and she felt herself go a shade or two paler. _Direct hit, Whitlock._

"Shit," he cursed as he saw her face change. "I mean, you dress like you don't think you're cute. Look, I'm not saying you're ugly, I--"

"No, that's valid criticism. Okay." She forced her eyes open and fisted her hands in her lap. "So at the dance, I should dress more, what, se--sexy? Or more modern or--"

"Alice, it's not-- it's not a thing like that." He took a breath and made his voice gentle and she stared at her rings. "It has nothing to do with what you wear. There's nothing wrong with your clothes. It's your attitude. You always wear black."

"It's sophisticated," she said in a small voice.

"But you look like you don't want people to notice you. Like you think you're not worth looking at. Look, if there's one reason nobody asked you out to a dance, it's probably that. You give off this aura that you want to be, I don't know, like a shadow-person. Like you're afraid for people to notice you now."

She stared down at her legs, encased in baggy black pants. She hadn't worn shorts in public since Moray caused her legs disgusting and she liked wearing shorts. She felt light-headed and choked with shame. How had she managed to let stupid girls like that take her joy in herself? 

"I'm probably not putting this very well, Alice," Jasper's voice interrupted her spiraling thoughts. He raked his hands through his hair, caught her eye and studied her for a moment. "I just thought, if you want to get people's attention, sometimes it helps to change their perceptions. You have pretty eyes and a great smile and you're cute as hell and I should have said that first. I just think you should try dressing like you believe those things too."

Jasper looked like he was afraid she was going to cry or possibly haul off and tell the whole school about him and Coach Rogan out of spite. He had obviously said all that stuff about her to butter her up. 

"When you're right, you're right, Whitlock," she answered him, lifting her chin and straightening up like a superhero about to go into a training montage for the final battle. "All right. Wait here, I'm going to try something." 

She fled to the bathroom, her oversized purse in hand, and quickly wriggled off her dress. It was one she had sewn herself, of course, and she still loved colors enough to make it reversible. Not that anyone saw the colorful side, except her alone in her room at night while she listened to music and worked on her art and dreamed about getting out of high school. She reversed it and pulled it back over her head with the red side facing out.

Then she pulled off her long pants and folded them carefully, placing them back in her bag. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror in the fancy, lavender-scented bathroom and sighed. She played with her black hair, rearranging it until it looked perfectly imperfect, cowlicked and spiky and weird. _Her._

 _Little red dresses and messy hair again,_ she thought. _Four years spent just to get back to where I started out. Welcome back, Alice,_ she mouthed to herself in the mirror and she saw her eyes sparkle in that familiar way. Plus, she had worn the right shoes - red and black plaid Mary Janes with chunky heels. 

She walked back into the living room gripping the hem in both hands. It was freaking short, this dress, hitting her in the middle of her thighs, which was why she'd always worn pants underneath it. It felt so weird to feel the breeze on her legs - _this used to be normal,_ she reminded herself. _You used to dress like this all the time._

"Okay, like this?" she asked, and he turned to look at her. His gaze kept stuttering over here, jerking from her stomach to her legs to her shoulders to her face and then back to her feet, almost like he couldn't find a place that was safe to look. "Is it that bad?"

"No," he said, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat. "I mean, that- that's, um, really pretty, Alice."

"Really? I do think I'm cute, by the way," she clarified as she sat down in her easy chair again, careful to keep her knees together. "In my own way. I'm just not beautiful. But a lot of people aren't," she added quickly when he frowned at her. "It's not a big deal."

"I didn't know there was a difference," he grumbled.

"And you've had how many girlfriends?" she teased. "When you're beautiful, no one tells you you have a great smile."

He squinted at her. "Your mind is baffling," he said at last. "What?"

"Never mind," she shrugged it off. "So, since I'm all dressed up now, are we going out on this date or what? I thought I heard someone was having a big rager tonight." 

Jasper had that occupied look of someone who was panicking but trying not to show it. "Um. Yeah. I think Moray might be." 

"Oh." Talk about going straight into the lion's den. "Do you want to go to that?"

"Heavens, no," he said, sounding for all the world like a 90 year old woman and then he blushed. They stared at each other until she burbled out a laugh and he followed. 

"But you're Mr. Popular! You always hang with Moray and that whole crowd!"

"Not really, Ferris. Sports and student government and school keep me pretty booked. Moray makes my head hurt. She always has." 

"But Katie doesn't?" She wasn't quite as bad as Moray, but they were always joined at the hip.

"She didn't at first. Katie's very clear. I always knew what I would get from her."

Alice curled up her face in disgust. _"Gross."_

"Jesus, Ferris, I didn't mean it like that. I'm saying, and I can't believe I'm saying it, but Katie never had any emotions toward me other than being happy I was cute and popular and opened the car door for her. It's sort of relaxing being with someone who's happy to be with you and doesn't want anymore than that."

Alice wondered how he seemed to know so well what Katie thought. But then how did he know how she felt about herself based on the way she dressed? He must have some kind of crazy intense observation skills, like Sherlock Holmes or something. 

"I still think you have questionable taste in girls, but at least you can say it's improving. Do you do this," she gestured to the beer and the joint, "every weekend?"

"No! Not _every_ weekend." He looked offended and then suspicious. "Why, are you going to blackmail me for _this_ now?"

"No, Jasper, I don't go around blackmailing people at the drop of a hat. I told you I did that for Betsy's future happiness. I'm asking because it just doesn't seem like you."

"Well, you don't know me," he said flatly. After a moment of silence, he sighed and continued, "My parents travel a lot. Sometimes if the house is empty, I relax a little. As long as it doesn't affect my grades or extracurriculars, what does it matter?"

"Why do you need to do it then?" she asked, still trying to puzzle it out. But he didn't respond to that at all, and finally she shrugged it off. She didn't think he was a closet teenage alcoholic, but she was pretty straight-edge so-- _Hell,_ she caught herself. _Stop thinking this "relationship" will last longer than one weekend, Alice._

"Everyone has a vice. You know, it's not a party, but we could go to Berry's for frozen custards. If you want," he said as she blinked in surprise. "There's always some kids there at this time of night. And I'm starving."

She grinned at him. Berry's was a popular hang-out for the kids at their school. Alice had never set foot in there. Emmett used to bring her and Betsy custards on the weekends (after his marathon dates with Rosalie) and they'd eat it in front of her computer while they watched their newest favorite Korean drama. 

Her phone chimed. 

Betsy: SHE SAID YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS  
In bathroom now.  
THANK YOU BESTY ALICE I LOVE YOU MORE THAN EVERY WORD!!!!!!!!!!!!  
are we okay?

Alice: SO SO SO HAPPY FOR YOU, BESTY BETSY!!!! ILY MUCHLY  
and always will  
Are your lips sore? hehe  
She IS french!

"Betsy and Esme are going to prom together! And they're going to spend the whole night sucker-fishing each other's faces -- something I assume the two of you never did?"

Jasper was straightening up the room, bagging the joint and sticking that and the three bottles of beer into a paper grocery sack, which he rolled up and put in a plastic bag, which he then put in his backpack. 

Alice waited for a response from Betsy while she watched him, but her phone didn't chime again. Alice caught herself sulking. This is what you wanted for Betsy, she told herself firmly. 

True, now that Emmett had Rosalie and Betsy had Esme and she herself was very "un-had," things would be different, but different was good. College would be different. "You can't change your life until you live it," her mom always said, and that was what she would start doing once she got to RISD.

She glanced up again and Jasper was still... freaking... cleaning.

"Is this an obsession or a compulsion?"

"My parents like the house clean," he said shortly, taking a bottle of air freshener out of some hidden location and liberally dousing the room.

"I thought they were out of town?" she asked, weaving out of the spray's reach and coughing. 

"They are." He dusted off his hands and rolled his shoulders back. "Are you ready to go?"

"You didn't even respond to my news - does our custard adventure mean you've forgiven me for breaking poor innocent Esme's heart by depriving her of a night with you and letting her be with the woman of her dreams?"

"As long as she's happy, forgiven." He even smiled at her. "And I thought we decided it was a date, since we're so much in love?"

Alice turned around and grabbed her bag so she wouldn't have to see the look on his face when he said it. "Whatever you say, Whitlock. Okay, let's go." She nervously brushed at her hair again and ran her hands over her dress. 

"Stop worrying. What could possibly go wrong at a custard shop?" 

"I'm not worried!"

He gave her a droll look out of his slightly fuzzy eyes and led her out of the house. Alice sighed and followed him, eyeing his jeans and t-shirt. Guys really got off so easy when it came to clothes.


	3. Dark Cars Are Made for Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper and Alice drive for custard and discuss art and his family and square watermelons (it's a thing).

Jasper was in the middle of locking the door to his house when Alice asked, in an innocent voice, "Katie stuffed her bra, didn't she?"

He dropped the keys on the ground. She darted around him and grabbed them.

"I'm not talking about underwear. Anyone's underwear," he rotated his arms to encompass her, his ex-girlfriend, his nanny, and the rest of the world. " _Ever._ That's a hard no." 

"I could go throw your keys in the lake," she threatened, because of course his parents were the kind of people who lived on a man-made lake. She twirled the ring around her finger. She looked toward the lake, then back at him, measuring the distance, and he shook his head at her. Alice made a run for it but only got three steps away before he scooped her up, twirling her around until she was dizzy and laughing. He let her hold onto the keys and clutched her against his chest instead, her legs thrown over his arm, like a bride getting carried over the threshold. This position put her face right up next to his and she was staring directly into his deep brown eyes. There were tiny flecks of gold around the irises, the same shade as his hair but so small only someone looking at him this closely would see. He took a breath and her eyes flickered to his very edible-looking mouth, then back up to his eyes again.

He carried her over to his car without looking away. "This is sorta nice," she said at last, when they reached their destination and he stopped walking. "Is this the kind of thing you do when you date someone?"

"I guess it depends on who you date and how willing they are to tote you around like a queen, Ferris. Here," he took the keys out from between her fingers and managed to shift her in a way that he could unlock the driver's side door with his free hand while still keeping a firm grip on her. "I hope you don't mind driving my car, I'm probably fine to do it, but--"

"Oh yeah, that's fine." He was so warm and she could feel the muscles working in her back and his chest as he held her up. She clasped her hands around his neck and fought the urge to grab hold of his hair. 

She understood suddenly what people meant when they said being so close to someone was "intoxicating." This was way better than the wine coolers she'd stolen from her mom when it came to making her giddy. 

And for a minute she even understood how the beautiful girls like Moray and Katie were so jealous. If she knew what it was like to be held so close by someone like Jasper, she might be a bitch too, if anyone tried to take it away from her. 

"Do you know the way to Berry's?" he asked, still staring down at her, almost like her vision, except his eyes were stoned and amused, nothing anywhere close to love. 

She wriggled out of his arms, swinging her feet to the driveway and climbing into the car. "Yes, of course."

"Is Emmett liking Penn?" Jasper asked after he'd climbed into the passenger seat and their moment had passed. _Her_ moment. It was all in her mind. Guys like him did that stuff all the time, she reminded herself. She'd seen him and Emmett give piggy-back rides to all the popular girls at one time or another, since they were both so tall. 

Rosalie couldn't care less and laughed over all the poor girls who thought it would make her jealous. "Emmett would carry Vladimir Putin if he jumped on his back, just to prove he could." Emmett had roared in response and put on a generic Eastern European accent. "Putin is _insignificant fly_ to Emmett!"

"Oh yeah, he loves it." Alice glanced around as she started his car. She had never been in a cleaner and more sterile vehicle than this one. It didn't seem like him at all, but then neither did his house. Or him getting high and drunk alone, for that matter. "He and Rosalie are practically living together, which all the parents conveniently ignore. Are you excited about Stanford? What made you decide to go there?"

He didn't respond for a minute, lowering his window and sticking his hand out. "Everyone in my family goes to Stanford."

"Yeah, I know, you're super-smart and rich and your whole family is just brilliant, Whitlock," she said, her tone light to make her words seem less biting. Jasper smiled a little reluctantly but his eyes still looked-- _sad? What did he have to be sad about? Being gorgeous and popular and going to Stanford and--_

"I heard you're going to RISD?" he asked and she grinned at just the sound of the word, then frowned because his tone was decidedly skeptical.

"Yeah. It's a very competitive school, you know."

"Mmm. For an art school." 

She glared at him as she sped along the well-lit streets of his bland subdivision to get back to the dark road leading back into town. "You're one of those business-minded jocks who thinks art is useless, right?"

"Not useless, but I think it's interesting that we venerate artists so much more than, say, trash collectors or plumbers, but if you asked 99 percent of people, they'd give up every museum and every theater in the world if it meant they didn't have to go back to burning their trash and shitting in a chamber pot. So which profession is really worth more?"

Alice almost pulled the car over and barfed on the curb. "Wow. You're the stupidest smart person I've ever met. You think people would give up every museum in the world for indoor plumbing?!"

"Of course they would. Wouldn't you? Oh wait, you wouldn't."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're one of those people who only cares about art."

"You're one of those people who has no idea what art is," she countered.

He snorted. "You even did your final project in European History about the Nazis stealing art and how the Allies worked to recover it!"

"So?" she snapped.

"Your presentation was all about the art! That's not history!"

"ART IS HISTORY. ART IS-- okay, this is hurting my throat. Art is bathrooms, Jasper. Art is trash cans. Art is the silverware you eat with and the design of this car and the chair you sit in and all that ugly overpriced furniture in your house! ART is everything. Without art, we have no world. Unless you think everything should be practical and colorless and ugly, which you probably do."

"To be fair," he said after a long pause, "I think most of that is design--"

"ART IS DESIGN."

"Okay," he raised his hands. "Point taken. Art is useful."

"Art is more than useful, it's--"

" _My point_ was that I think people put too much emphasis on artistic intelligence when there are plenty of other kinds of intelligence." He crossed his arms, looking defensive.

"Well, yeah. I'm not saying an artist is more important than a plumber or a trash collector or anyone else. I am an artist, or I'm trying to be, anyway, so that's what I care about, but that doesn't make me better than anyone who can't draw a straight line."

Just then his phone started ringing through the car's speakers. Jasper glanced at the display and groaned quietly. "Sorry, I have to take this. I'll try to get her off the phone fast. Hello, Mom," he said loudly after he answered the phone. "I'm in the car with someone and you're on speaker."

"Hello, darling! We're in Vienna now, having the most marvelous time! Edward's newest symphony premiered, it was more brilliant than we could have imagined! Everyone raved about it, he got three standing ovations! The newspaper here said at this rate Edward is guaranteed a Pulitzer by the time he's thirty. Could you imagine? Our Edward, enshrined forever-- what? Oh, yes, hold on. Sweetheart, the reason I'm calling, Edward's going to St. Petersburg next month to work with the symphony there so we'll be home on Monday, but then we'll be leaving again for Russia on the 18th of May. I hope you can be home to watch the house, if not we'll have to get a house sitter--"

"Mom, Mom, Mom!" Jasper interrupted, his volume steadily rising as she continued to speak, oblivious. Her voice was soft and cultured and full of unadulterated glee, but Jasper's shoulders had gone up around his ears from the minute she started speaking. And now he looked angry, his mouth drawn back over his teeth as he yelled at her. "May 18th is graduation!" 

"Whose graduation, darling?"

"Mine! My high school graduation! I'm valedictorian, Mom!" He slammed his hands on the dashboard.

"Oh, of course. Of course, love. We could leave that night! That way we'll be sure to see you walk across the stage and give your speech. Oh, we still have Edward's valedictorian speech on DVD, be sure you watch it before you start writing yours. I'll remind your father about the dates as soon as we get off the phone. He's waiting so I have to go now-- we're meeting Edward and his friends for dinner. He has a new girlfriend, she's third chair cellist here but she's also in her first year of medical school -- I'm coming, I'm coming! I'll see you on Monday, sweetheart! Ta-ta!"

Alice had almost chewed a hole through her lip trying to keep her mouth closed. She stared hard at the road, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible because she could feel how upset he was. 

A squelchy sort of noise came from his side of the car and she winced as she looked over at him. 

"Sorry," he muttered, wiping his hand over his face, trying to keep his head turned away from her. "I'm a fucking pussy."

"Hmm." Alice considered. "I didn't know only sentient vaginas were allowed to be upset about things."

Rather than laugh, Jasper bent further over, jamming his hands against his face. His shallow, quick breaths filled up the car. Alice tried to reach out her hand to touch his back, but the road was curvy and she wasn't used to it. He lived in the ritziest subdivision thirty minutes outside town, where nothing could spoil the residents' picture postcard views of the mountains. 

Alice drove in silence for another moment and then decided she would have to do something to save the night. "So this one time we were at the Country Time Buffet with my grandparents and my grandpa got in this big fight with the cashier because she wouldn't let him use his $1.00 off coupon along with his senior discount. Of course, they started cussing each other out and then the manager came out and my grandpa called him a snollygoster and the manager said if my grandpa was this broke he shouldn't go out to eat at all, and my grandpa said at least he didn't have 'nipples bigger'n silver dollars." 

Jasper started to laugh at that, raspy and slightly hysterical, but there.

"And then the manager forced my grandpa out of the store and banned us from all the Country Time Buffets. _All of them._ And my grandma and my mom both cried and I got so upset I threw up everything I ate in the parking lot and Emmett disappeared and everyone really freaked out, and it turned out he went down to the donut shop to buy Munchkins to make us feel better. And my parents had this big fight because these were my mom's parents and my dad was, like, publicly humiliated, and it turned out my grandpa had dementia and we had to put him in a home."

When Jasper lowered his hands and turned to her, his face was red and swollen but a grin was on his beautiful mouth again. "What exactly was the point of that story, Ferris?"

"That everyone has crazy relatives, obviously. I guess yours are your parents, which kind of sucks." She waited a beat and held his stare. He looked ashamed and a little fearful, like he thought she was going to make fun of him or something. 

"I guess you know my big secret now," he said at last. "You thought you were going to prom with some perfect guy, instead of the Whitlock family's nothing loser son." When she glanced at him again, her gaze flickering from his trembling bottom lip to his eyes, he continued. "You know, my middle name is Edward. They literally named me after him." 

He turned away from her and stared out the windshield again, at the dark road in front of them. No headlights passing. Almost like they were staring off the edge of the earth. "They've never-- they don't feel the way about me that they do about him. They never have. Edward is so remarkable, they can't believe he's theirs. And I'm--" He closed his eyes again. "I'm pretty sure they only kept me in case Edward gets sick and needs bone marrow or a heart transplant one day."

She got a flash and missed part of what he was saying, though she got the gist. 

She saw Jasper on their graduation day, his pressed white shirt and navy pants under the ugly turquoise graduation gown. His old nanny Louise would be there, she would cry and take pictures of him holding up his diploma, his assured smile and his tousled blonde hair and his desolate midnight eyes. His parents, regardless of whatever his mom had promised, wouldn't come. 

She wanted to spit on them. 

Instead, she said, "I have no idea what Edward is even famous for, if it makes you feel better. I wouldn't know what he looked like if not for all those pictures at your house."

"You want his statistics? He plays seven instruments, he's performed on six continents, he's written five symphonies, he speaks four languages, he has three advanced degrees and two parents who worship the ground he walks on."

"And one brother who can't stand him?" she asked with an arched eyebrow.

Jasper was still looking dispassionately out at the blackness. "It wasn't like we grew up together. He was sixteen when he went to college, I was only six. We spent every school break and vacation visiting him, but I spent most of the time in the hotel or going to museums with my nanny. I spent my whole life trying to live up to him," he whispered, looking over at her again. "And I don't even really know him. Except what I've learned listening to him give speech after speech for all the awards he's won.

"You regret asking me yet?" He turned to her with a huff of laughter. 

She shook her head and smiled. "I like you better like this actually. Less _glossy _," she moved her hand in a circle.__

__"You're a weirdo, Ferris," he said, with a note of surprised affection in his voice._ _

__"Yep," she grinned. "Is all this crap why you didn't want to go to prom?"_ _

__"I don't know. Being around a lot of people makes my head hurt too, sometimes. What about you?" He reached out and poked her bare knee and she jumped-- not because it hurt, just in surprise. "Are you going to shock everyone and wear one of your carnival outfits tomorrow?"_ _

__"My what?" Okay, she did have a dress she designed with a print of carousel horses, but she never wore it to school, so how would he know that?_ _

__"You used to dress up like a carnival every day. It was so funny - so different," he murmured, his quiet voice rasping through the dark. She flushed a little, unsure if it was a compliment, but it seemed like he meant it as one. "And then it seemed like you changed, back when you started wearing black. I always wondered why. Emmett said you were your own person and you could take care of yourself. But it didn't seem like you were who you wanted to be."_ _

__She drove in silence for a moment, thinking of all those days she wanted to wear a feather boa or bedazzled overalls to school and didn't. She didn't. Moray and her friends had mostly left her alone once she started wearing black, only laughing occasionally when she visioned in class and missed the teacher saying her name over and over. "Maybe I kind of lost part of myself for a while. I told myself there was no use in putting myself out there if I was just going to get shit on, but now I don't know. I sort of wish I had been myself, all the way myself, the whole time."_ _

__"How do you know who you are?"_ _

__"What do you mean?" she frowned._ _

__"I said I don't know who Edward is, but I also don't know who I am without him. I've spent my whole life living with his accomplishments, the way my parents feel about him compared to how little they feel for me, and that's what shaped me. Like how Japanese people grow watermelons in cubes--"_ _

__"What, they do?"_ _

__"Yeah. Square watermelons - they use them for decorations," they both broke up laughing, then stopped. "That's sad as shit, isn't it? I'm a square watermelon."_ _

__They exchanged another glance and she saw his face in the brighter streetlights, now that they were finally in town. His hair glowed like the setting sun in their orange light. It was so strange to be talking with him like this, but something about the dark car seemed to demand it. Cocooned together, they could almost be the only two people on earth, like a spaceship traveling through this normal night to some place better, making it seem-- magical? Extraordinary. Not touching, but feeling so close to each other they might as well be._ _

__"So break the box and keep growing." It was easy to say, and sounded easy to do, but she knew better. He did too, because he laughed again, dry and low. "You know," she continued, hoping she didn't sound bossy, "my mom used to tell me something. 'The only thing better than being perfect is being imperfect.' That if you can look at an imperfect thing and really see it and love it, that's the place the best things begin. That's the great thing about art. If it makes you feel something it can be great, and you shouldn't worry about making it perfect."_ _

__"And if you're imperfect and they love you even less," Jasper replied, staring out the window and not meeting her eyes. "Where do you go after that?"_ _

__"Well, at least you didn't go the other route," she said after a moment. "Better to be a square watermelon than to be, like, cooking meth in your garage or something."_ _

__He snorted. "I think about that sometimes. You know, my parents have never seen a single one of my varsity games? Jeffrey Dahmer's dad drove eleven hours to visit him in prison every single month, and he was a fucking cannibal who ate people!"_ _

__She gave him a startled look and he shrugged. "Louise raised me on _Dateline._ I still watch them for background noise when I'm studying."_ _

__"Well, thank you for relating that anecdote _after_ I finished driving through the pitch black night with you. Though I'm pretty sure I can take you," she said and he slanted his gaze over her again and smirked. She gave him a haughty glare back. "I fight dirty, Whitlock."_ _

__"Why doesn't that surprise me?" he said in an ironic voice. "Blackmail and all." He paused a minute and cleared his throat. "I don't mean that awkward, you know."_ _

__"Well, that is what I did, isn't it?" She felt a little bleak._ _

___Weird virgin loser has to blackmail someone to go out with her._ That's exactly what Moray would say if she knew what Alice was doing and it would be totally true. _ _

__And then she saw it:_ _

___They're sitting at one of the tables outside the custard shop and he has his arm around her. He feeds her a spoonful of custard and a slow wicked sort of smile commandeers his face as he watches her eat it. "Why is it bad to say you have a really great smile?"_ _ _

__She flashed back into herself, seeing the bright sign for Berry's approaching in the distance. He's just finished saying something but she hasn't heard it. Her visions are a pain in the ass like that. She missed the twist in _Gone Girl_ and couldn't understand what was happening when she came back to the movie. Though Betsy theorized that she must have some preservation sense that kicked in because at least they never caused her to wreck a car._ _

__"Mm-hmm," she said, her standard response when she didn't know what she had missed. "I've never been here before."_ _

__"It's just a restaurant, Ferris."_ _

__"That's not going to be my nickname now, is it?" she asked, giving him a look as they pulled into the parking lot._ _

__"Why not? I think it suits you. You quoted Ferris Bueller, and the way you used to dress, I told you it reminded me of a carnival. And talking to you is like being on a ferris wheel, where the scenery changes every few second. And it makes me think of fairies."_ _

__"Okay, okay, I'll take Ferris, but not Fairy--"_ _

__She parked right in front of the restaurant and they both saw the group at the same moment._ _

__Katie, his ex-girlfriend. Alec, the shortstop to Jasper's pitcher on the varsity team and Jasper's ex-best friend. And a bunch of other kids, not the most popular ones in school, but all popular-adjacent and much higher in the social strata than Alice herself._ _

__Great. Just great._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can imagine how crappy it would feel for Jasper growing up with powers and knowing how his parents feel about him in comparison to Edward, I think you can understand why he has issues. This is also where his issues with artists come from -Edward is a brilliant artist and Jasper has to make do with being brilliant at everything else. This might be obvious but I worry he came across too much of a whiny spoiled rich boy here.
> 
> If you're one of the 3 people reading this, you're the man now, dawg. I promise I will finish it. Is that a promise or a threat? Haha.


	4. Berry's Classic Burgers and Custard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice and Jasper go for custard, see his ex-girlfriend, and have a revelatory conversation.

"I thought you said Moray was having a party tonight! Why is Katie here?" 

She watched them through the window. Katie was just as small on top as she and Betsy were, Alice knew that, but she had some kind of crazy magic bra that made her look luscious and gorgeous in her draped silk top. She had no doubt Katie was counting the days until her boob job - she'd probably get it for graduation. 

_One car ride, one night and you're turning into a jealous old biddy,_ Alice chastised herself. _Katie being beautiful doesn't make you make you ugly. Calm down._

Jasper seemed unsurprised by their presence and grabbed his door handle. "Katie always likes to make an entrance. Besides, knowing her, she's out campaigning for prom queen, wants to hit as many places as she can tonight. You vote on your way into the dance. Are you ready?" he asked her, noticing she had made no movement to get out.

She turned off the car and handed him his keys. "I really look okay? Not too overdressed?" she breathed, tugging at the straps of her dress again, pulling the sleeves down over her shaking fingers. 

"Alice," he said and when she didn't turn, he took her chin and moved her head around to face him. His own face looked calm, all signs of his recent breakdown gone, but as he studied her, he got that little crinkle between his eyebrows that meant he was worried. "You look great and it's going to be fine. And even if you didn't," he said, a little sly, "it would be the only thing better than perfect."

She rolled her eyes. "I think I'm imperfect enough naturally without looking like dogshit going in there."

He looked at her like she was a little crazy. "I've never seen you look like dogshit. Somebody really did a number on your confidence, didn't they?" 

"No, I'm fine." She took a deep breath and his eyes fell to her chest for a second. This dress was more low-cut that what she normally wore and her olive skin glowed against the deep red. That glance did more for her than any platitudes about the magic of imperfection from her mom.

"Good, 'cause I'm still slightly high and I really want a frozen custard," Jasper replied, his mouth lifting into that grin again, the one that made her heart flutter and also calmed her brain somehow because if he was smiling like that, with his whole face in play, things were going to be okay.

"I'll buy," she told him as he climbed out of the car.

"You absolutely will not," he retorted and went around to her door to help her out.

She had thought she would be so happy the day she walked into Berry's with a boy, that she would feel changed somehow: a silly little butterfly of a daydream. 

Of course, it couldn't be that simple. Nothing ever was.

From the booth they were sitting in, Katie and the others couldn't see them as they walked to the counter and placed their order - he paid, she would have to leave some cash in the cupholder in his car when he wasn't looking - and took their cups and napkins and spoons. 

"Do you want to sit in a booth?" he asked, as casually as if they did this every single weekend.

She shook her head, thinking of her vision, of licking frozen custard off his spoon. "No, let's sit at a table outside, okay?"

She had wondered for a half-second if maybe she was building it up in her mind. But when they walked through the shop together, weirdo artsy Alice in her plaid Mary Jane heels and short red dress, and class president/star pitcher/valedictorian/golden boy Jasper in his jeans and t-shirt, all of them went quiet for a beat. Alice saw their faces freeze with shock. 

Jasper stopped at the booth and put his politician smile on his face, the one she hated because it didn't reach his eyes. "Hey, guys."

"Hi, Jasper. Hi, Alice," Charlotte spoke up. She had been in a bunch of Alice's art electives and they were low-key friendly. "I really like your dress."

"Thanks, Charlotte. Are you guys having fun?"

"Yeah, we just stopped here to get some food before we go to the movies. What are you two up to?"

"Yeah, Jasper," Alec said in a voice that sounded like he was holding back a laugh, smirking up at Jasper. Katie glimmered next to him, looking perfect and untouchable in her frozen anger. "What _are_ you up to?"

"Alice and I got a craving for custards so I made her drive out here and get one with me." Jasper casually put his arm around Alice's shoulder and Katie stiffened, her gaze flashing between Jasper's face, his arm, and Alice's face. She leaned over and whispered something to Alec and he made a point of trying to muffle his snort in his napkin.

Charlotte gave them a look and then glanced back up at Alice sympathetically.

"Peter, congratulations on getting into Penn!" Alice spoke up, turning her attention to Charlotte's boyfriend. "That's where my brother and his girlfriend go, they really like it there."

Peter glanced up at her in surprise. He pushed his glasses up his nose and a shy smile appeared on his face. "Thanks, Alice. I didn't think people really knew, I just found out yesterday that they took me off the waitlist."

"Alice always seems to know stuff that isn't any of her business," Katie said. "I think she listens at doorways."

"She's skinny enough to fit underneath them," a red-headed girl who Alice didn't really know muttered in a loud whisper.

"It's not like it's a secret, Katie, Peter just hadn't told that many people yet," Charlotte spoke up. "Alice got into RISD, which is one of the most competitive art schools in the country."

"So are you two going to the prom together?" Alec spoke up again, watching Katie as he asked the question. She had picked up her phone and started typing furiously into it, pretending to be in her own little world far above all of them. 

"Yes. We are." Jasper's voice was crisp and heavy as expensive paper and everyone's eyes widened, even Alice's. Katie went red-cheeked under her expensive cosmetics but she only typed faster, without looking up.

Alice saw a flash of Katie texting Moray the big news, and from there, it would chime its way, screen by screen, through the entire school. 

Charlotte frowned. "Wait, I thought you were going with Esme?" She glanced from Alice to Jasper. Peter nudged her but she ignored him.

Jasper pulled Alice closer until she was pressed into his side. "Esme was gracious enough to let me change my plans so I could take Alice instead," he said, looking slightly abashed but still putting a bright awe on her name, and then he turned to her and she could feel his gaze on her face. 

Steeling herself, she watched him turn to her, looking down with those adoring, impossibly pretty eyes, dark brown speckled with gold, and for a moment, it was like she was in her vision of prom, the one she hadn't believed would ever come true. Being there was so wonderful she felt fizzy-chested, joy rushing into her throat, which filled with laughter and unspent kisses that belonged on his mouth. 

And then she remembered -- this was all an act-- and she went cold again. This was a lie they had told, so Betsy and Esme could be happy. She looked away, back at Charlotte, and swallowed down all her dreams. "Jasper and I are going together and Esme's going with Betsy Swan." 

Katie smirked at that and Alice shot her a glare. It was probably wrong to use her powers for evil (okay, it was definitely wrong), but if that bitch and Moray tried to ruin prom for Betsy, well, Alice figured a few years in hell would be a small price to pay for avenging her friend. Katie typed on, ignorant of all of Alice's dark thoughts.

"Tell Moray I said hello," she said sweetly to Katie and the whole table went silent. Katie's big blue eyes flickered up to Alice's and held there. "I can't wait to see her at the dance. We're going to have so much fun!" Katie looked ready to slap the smile off her face, but after a moment, she glanced back down at her phone and starting typing again.

"Yeah, it sounds fun," Charlotte said, still looking slightly confused about what was going on. "We'll have to hang out."

"We will," Alice said, actually meaning it this time. "And I can't wait for you to see my dress. It's going to be spectacular!"

"A true return to form," Jasper said smoothly and Alice reached up and squeezed his fingers where they rested on her upper arm. 

"And you shouldn't drink too much," she admonished Alec, who looked even more befuddled than Charlotte. "We don't want a repeat of the spring formal."

"Right," Jasper said into the silence. "Well, see you at the dance tomorrow." 

"Yeah, see you," Peter said, biting back his laughter. 

"See you at prom!" Charlotte called as they walked away. 

He waited until they sat down side by side at one of the outdoor tables before he lifted his arm from her shoulder. She shifted a little uneasily on the hard metal bench. "Was my arm too heavy?" he asked.

"No, it's fine." _It felt really, really nice actually, like we were on the same team and maybe I wish you hadn't taken it away._

"So--" they both said at once and then laughed awkwardly. 

"Sorry, you first," he said, vigorously stirring his cup to mix the peanut butter cups and chocolate sauce into the custard.

She picked up her plastic spoon and fiddled with her own cup. "So is that what it's going to be like at the dance?" Alice asked quietly. When he wrinkled his forehead, she continued, "Us looking at each other like that all night?"

He moved forward, resting his elbow on the table and then leaning his chin on his arm - it put his eyes and hers at the same level. Alice knew suddenly that was the kind of thing he would do, so they could watch each other more easily while they talked. She thought about Rosalie saying how kindness is underrated and she blinked and looked back at the table.

"I thought that was what you wanted? We're trying to make Esme understand why I'm not taking her, right?" 

"Yeah, I know," she replied.

She did know - she had seen it so many times now, the way he would smile and laugh at her tomorrow, listening to her whisper-dissect the other girls' dresses. Even how he would hold her purse when she went to the bathroom with Betsy. 

But she had never imagined it would hurt quite this way, to have something that looked so much like love and then feel it all disappear like Cinderella's dress at the end of the night.

He licked the back of his spoon and she glanced at his cup. He had finished two-thirds of his custard already. She had sort of lost her appetite once she realized what the following night would really be like. He glanced at her cup and shook his head. "I never lose my appetite, by the way."

"How'd you--"

"You aren't eating, so it stands to reason," he shrugged. "Are you going to eat that pineapple?"

She picked it up to put it on his spoon and he lowered his head and grabbed it with his mouth, his bottom lip brushing against her forefinger. 

"Alice?" He watched her as he chewed. "How'd you know about Alec and the spring formal? I didn't think anyone knew about that but me and Garrett."

Alice smiled. Another vision she hadn't understood until a few minutes ago. "About him getting drunk, barfing in the plant outside the principal's office and then scraping the side of Mr. Patterson's car as he drove off?" 

Jasper nodded, a wry smile on his mouth. It looked so good there, she picked up another bit of pineapple and held it out to him again. This time he lingered even more over her fingers, scraping his teeth over the pad of her thumb and she shuddered all the way through. 

"Are you cold?" he asked, putting his arm over her shoulder again, his hand high on her back. She shook her head and she saw what they would look like to anyone passing by. He was leaning into her and touching her -- people would think they were together.

"No, I'm fine," she sat up a little straighter and leaned back. He frowned but he took his hand away. 

"Well? About the spring formal?"

"I think I overheard Garrett telling Tanya about it," she said, picking another girl at random. 

"And you also never told me about how you knew about me being the one who, you know," he dropped his voice, "on Coach."

She suddenly picked up her spoon and jammed a big mouthful of melted custard and coconut flakes in her mouth. She looked up at him and shrugged as she chewed. 

Slowly his eyes went a little unfocused and she felt a subtle sensation start in her mind, a shifting wave, like trees rustling in a breeze. She dropped her spoon and clapped her hands over her ears. He blinked at her and it stopped abruptly. 

"What was that?" she asked cautiously, lowering her hands. 

"I don't know," he answered. "And you still haven't answered my questions."

"Yes, I did," she protested.

"And me and Coach?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I just guessed. You were the only one on the baseball team who had the balls to do that and you were..."

"What? Too honest to lie? So worried about being hated that I would have taken extra care to cover my tracks?" He raised his eyebrows, daring her to deny it. "Or you knew it some other way."

"I--" she started and stopped. This was the opening she'd been waiting for, but how to start? 

"You know," he shifted on the bench, swinging his leg across to straddle it and stare at her, "Emmett got such a kick out of you. He used to brag about you all the time."

"Brag?" Alice grimaced, trying to imagine what on earth Emmett would consider worthy of bragging. She hoped to god he didn't go around telling Jasper about the french fry eating contest she won when she was nine. "Oh god, about what?"

"Just about all the crazy things you'd come up with. He said once that you could always predict political elections, even when you were a little kid. Is that true?" he asked when she didn't respond.

She had a sudden sensation of being trapped in his gaze, and the longer she stared at him, the brighter the tiny gold spots around his iris seemed to grow, until they were like tiny flames and she was a moth and that rustling wave of sensation in her head again, not painful but strange--

"Stop it!" she hissed. He blinked again and she grabbed another spoonful of custard, trying to anchor herself in the here and now. "It's not nice to poke around in people's heads, Whitlock," Alice said, half-expecting him to wave it off.

But his expression was serious, the corners of his mouth turned down. "No, it's not, Alice. And you shouldn't use whatever you do against people either."

She paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth and he reached out and caught the drip with a napkin before it could hit her dress. 

Then he tossed the napkin on the table and got up and walked away.


	5. Unexpected Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice and Jasper are both gifted. What happens when they figure out the other's secret? Lots of ups, downs, and truth-telling, that's what. Remember, with great powers come... lots of issues.

Alice sat in shock. 

Oh hell. This was why she didn't date. How did he know? How could she-- If even a girl who can see the freaking future ends up alone in a red dress, too stunned to produce tears, how did normal people ever manage this?

And the freaking mystery that was him - what did Jasper just do to her? She could _feel_ him inside her head before. How did she miss this about him? It made so much sense, the way he was able to get along with everyone, how he instinctively seemed to know what people wanted from him, why his parents' feelings about his brother seemed to wound him so deeply...

_Would have been helpful to know,_ she said to whatever force gifted her with these visions. _I get Emmett out of all his speeding tickets, but a vision about this, oh no, let's not make Alice's life too easy._

And now he'd driven off and left her, pissed again about the blackmail and her using her gifts to manipulate him, just like she pissed off Emmett and Betsy and everyone in her orbit because she couldn't even handle the gift she was given. She could call her mom to come pick her up, but then she'd have to do the walk of the dumped past Katie. Moray and their friends would get the news at the speed of text and they'd sit around all night laughing at her again. (She didn't need a vision to know _that._ ) And would Jasper still take her to the prom? She should have told him earlier, maybe when they were in the car and he was talking about his family. Maybe it was a "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" thing and he would have told her about whatever he did--

Jasper sat back down next to her with another cup of custard, salted caramel this time. 

"You came back," she whispered, afraid to look up from the table to see what was in his face. He stayed silent and when she finally glanced up, he gestured to his full mouth. 

"Of course," he said after he swallowed. "Looking like that, Alice, I'm not going to leave you here without a ride."

"Looking like what?" she slid her hands down her thighs and grabbed at the hem of her dress again. 

He watched her fingers clutch the fabric and then he glanced back at her face. "Beautiful," he said matter-of-factly. "And stop changing the subject." He ate another bite, more slowly this time. "Can you tell what I'm thinking right now?" he lowered his voice, even though Katie and Alec and the others were inside and no one was around to overhear. 

Her head felt like it was floating five feet above her neck. "No! Of course not." She tried to eat another spoonful of custard but it was a gloppy puddle and totally hopeless. "It's not like that. I can't read your mind. Sometimes I see things before they happen," she whispered.

She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye and his lips were white again. She realized with a start that he was terrified and she felt her heart shudder. Emmett and Betsy and her mom had accepted her so long ago and they had never been afraid - Rosalie had been doubtful, but she hadn't been scared of Alice (just the idea of that made Alice laugh). Her dad, he had been scared of her for the thirty seconds he spent wondering if it could be true. Then he dismissed it as some fantasy his daughter made up so she could be magical and not hopelessly peculiar.

"Do you see things all the time?" Jasper asked at last, without looking at her. "Do you always know what's going to happen?"

"No," Alice said numbly. "Of course not. I see glimpses of things, sometimes they're not even right. Sometimes I see more than one outcome because people change their minds so much. Elections are pretty easy. And the weather. Do you want me to tell you what I've seen for you?" she said, steeling herself to tell him that his parents wouldn't be going to his graduation, but the question made him look at her with horrified eyes. "It's nothing that terrible," she babbled when he stared at her. "I'm sorry, it's just that your parents won't come to graduation, but--"

"Is that all?" he asked, grabbing her wrist. "You haven't seen anything else?"

Alice wrinkled her face in thought. "I saw you and me at prom. That's why I-- the blackmail thing-- I knew you would take me and Esme would go with Betsy. But nothing else, really," she said, deciding to exempt herself from sharing her small custard shop vision because he definitely didn't seem like he was going to be feeding her custard anytime soon.

"Okay," he nodded. "Okay." He let go of her wrist. "I hope I didn't hurt you," he muttered.

She frowned. "You didn't. Can I ask what you're so nervous about? Are you planning to go full Dahmer on me?"

"I don't want to know what's going to happen to me," he said, picking up his custard and starting to devour it with a vengeance. "Let's change the subject."

"You regret asking me yet?" she asked, repeating the question he had asked her in the car. "I know you thought-- think I'm a weirdo but this is full-on crazy, get confined to a mental hospital level bizarre, isn't it?" She hid her hands in her sleeves again, half-afraid he would never touch her now like he had before. That he would laugh about this one day, years from now with some Katie-like girl, how he went on a disastrous date with some girl who thought she was a psychic.

Jasper snorted out a laugh and she looked at him in shock. "You felt what I was doing before, right? I can hardly sit in judgment of you, Ferris."

"I did feel you inside me-- inside my head, I mean," she stammered and pretended her neck wasn't turning bright red. "Were you trying to feel what I was feeling?"

"Yeah, something like that," he muttered, hunching his shoulders a little. "Sorry about the pushing. I knew there was something funny about you, but I've never been able to pinpoint it."

"Is this how you make everyone like you? By cawling around in their heads?" She thought about it a moment, all the times she could tell that her dad wished she would shut up and leave him alone or that Moray was getting ready to laugh at her spacing out in class. What would it be like to _feel_ someone else's annoyance or cruelty? Or their pain? "It doesn't sound very fun," she ventured and Jasper's hands jerked and he dropped his spoon.

He busied himself bending to pick it up. "It's not," he said finally, as he straightened and eyed his spoon critically. It must have passed inspection because he started eating again. "I don't know that I'd trade with you though. Don't you ever see things and get scared you can't change them?"

"There are some things no one can change." Alice shrugged. "But I try my best to make things a little better, if I can." He looked at her in surprise, then he nodded. "What's yours like?" she asked, putting her elbows up on the table and cupping her chin as she watched him eat. "Do you go away somewhere else? That's what I do."

"No, usually it's more like other people come into me. Most people keep their emotions right on top and they spill over into my head--"

"Oh jeez," Alice interjected in sympathy.

He shrugged like she had but his eyes were all shadowy and so brown, no gold to them at all. "You get used to it. Sometimes it's nice, if you're around people who feel happy. That's why I like Emmett so much. When I used to go over to your house to hang out with him, that's how you felt to me too." She went still and he caught her eyes and she thought maybe they brightened a little bit. "You'd be laughing with him and Betsy and your mom. That kind of connection, it's one of the best feelings for me. Everyone lit-up like a Christmas tree in the middle of the night. Like when you wake up and go look at the tree shining and you hold the sight of it inside you. Even though the house feels empty and your bed is cold and maybe you had a bad dream, the lights make you feel glad. They make the night safer."

She was grinning up at him, equal parts fascinated and flabbergasted they were talking about this. She had no idea when she made this plan that this was how it would work out, but she felt so close to him now. Almost as close as she was to Betsy, because of how much they had shared in one night.

"I don't know. Sorry," he ducked his head down and rubbed his forehead. "What am I talking about? Anyway, if everyone was like that, things would be easy. But they're not. And sometimes, if people are closed-up, I have to push harder if I want to feel anything. I don't like to do it." He rubbed at a heart scrawled on the plastic table, faded initials inside. Permanent marker for a temporary love. "It makes my head hurt. And it seems rude. When you were at school, that's how you were." He put his hands over his chest, closed his fists over his heart. "Locked in. I couldn't feel you there most of the time."

"Hiding my light under a bushel," she murmured, because that was what her grandma had accused her of doing when she changed the way she dressed, when she stopped trying to make friends, contenting herself with Betsy and Emmett. 

"I like you better this way," he said, giving her a quick considering look. Her stomach flipped over and she caught herself leaning toward him but she couldn't make herself move away. What did he feel off her now? "When you're not hiding, when you're lit up. Even if it means we're fighting about design-- sorry, art."

"I like you better this way too - when you tell me secrets. Turns out you have an actual personality instead of a collection of achievements for your future resume. No offense, Whitlock," she said, grinning when he laughed at her. "I guess I like how strange you are. That's what my art is about, looking at things differently. Finding the weirdness and the absurdities."

"I thought art was supposed to be about beauty," he said, his gaze focusing on the earrings that crowded her ear. He hopscotched his finger over them and then he touched her cheek, lightly, running the tip of his finger down to her chin and she lowered her head to follow the motion.

"Beauty is in the imperfections," Alice said as she fought to repress her shudder. "They're what makes something beautiful." She heard what she was saying and shook her head a little. "Not in high school-- or not in our high school anyway, but when you talk about art. That's what you have to find, the weird specificities that make something different. Artists love those. And that's why I'm going to fall in love in art school."

"Explain that logic please." Jasper fingered her chin, the sharp point of it, and then he placed his fingers on her throat, and her eyes fluttered shut for a minute before she pulled them back open. 

She reached out and gripped the front of his t-shirt, crumpling it between her fingers and he pushed her chin an inch or two higher. "Because an artist will see everything that's so different about me and my mind and my body and he'll love it."

"And think you're beautiful because of your imperfections?" he said, like he was double-checking and she nodded. "You don't need to go to Providence to find someone who thinks that, Alice. It's obvious. Didn't I just say it?"

"Yeah, _now_ , but you never did before--"

"If someone doesn't fall down at your feet the first time they see you, it means they're a liar? You are beautiful, Alice." He stared so deep into her eyes she felt like he could see her heart there, her fragile and hopeful artist's heart, and that was what he was speaking to. She felt like she could fall inside him. "And I feel bad, you haven't had hardly any custard." Without looking away, he held his spoon up to her lips and she felt something cold and delicious against the roof of her dry mouth. "Why was it bad for me to say you have a great smile?"

She sucked on her bottom lip for a minute and he moved his own mouth like he wanted to take a bite out of something. 

"Before?" Jasper said, his voice rougher now. "I said you had a great smile and you said if I thought you were beautiful, I wouldn't have said that."

"Because 'great smile' or 'pretty eyes' are the generic things you say to someone who's not that pretty. No one ever tells Rosalie she has a great smile. They tell her she's beautiful-gorgeous-sexy-irresistible, and leave it at that--"

He slid his hand into her hair and kissed her, so soft at first, the pressure of his warm lips against hers. He whispered her name and she opened her eyes to find him watching her, that look on his face that he had given her inside, in front of everyone, only this time it was real and it was only for her.

"I don't wanna stop," she murmured back and pulled him closer by his t-shirt and then it wasn't gentle at all. 

She lost herself in the electricity, the sinews of his shoulders, his soft springy curls, the heat of his fingers. (Hers were cold because she was nervous again and she hoped he didn't think it was because she wasn't into it.) Neither of them could stop touching the other and she knelt in his lap, half-crazy with the feel of her body reacting to his.

Alice had this drumbeat urge to pull him down on top of her, to feel the pressure of him against her so she could arch against him. She shifted her knees in his lap and he made this sound in his chest, half gasp and half moan, and she flushed from her chest to the top of her head and pulled her mouth away.

She leaned her head against his and he brushed his lips against the corner of her mouth. "Alice," he breathed. "Did that feel perfect to you too?"

She shook her head and he blinked at her. "It wasn't enough," she replied, rubbing her thumb over his bottom lip and she watched in amazement as his pupils got bigger and his palms grabbed onto her waist and cradled her, like she was pretty. Like she was enough, her little imperfect self.

She saw movement over his shoulder and glanced through the patio doors to see an employee cleaning the booth where Katie and her friends had been sitting. "Oh, they left," she said, wondering how long they'd been kissing. She had that lost-time feeling that she got from visions or her best days making art, when she would look at the clock and hours had gone by while she was making something beautiful.

Could she make something beautiful with him? Beautifully imperfect and fierce and _theirs_?

"Tell me what you're feeling," she demanded, her hands still on his face, studying him. "It's not fair for you to know what I'm feeling all the time."

"I think I feel the same way you do," he replied, his hand moving up her back to cradle her head. "I really, really like you, Alice."

They both grinned at each other, that particular quivery grin that's euphoric and scared at the same time, and when he held his hand out to her, she slid her fingers between his. "Hey," he said, tilting his head. "Your rings. I didn't really notice them before." He peered closer. "Is that a fork?"

"Oh, yeah." She reluctantly took her other hand off his skin and fluttered her fingers. Her biggest indulgence was her jewelry. "I took a metalworking class last year and it took over my life for a while. Have you ever noticed girls' rings will have, like, flowers or butterflies and guys' rings have skulls, but they never have anything really unique? So I made this ring," she pointed to the ring finger of the hand he was holding, "with a little fork on it cause my grandma says 'fork you' instead of 'fuck you.' Then I made this one," she showed him her thumb on her other hand, "with a bear's paw because Emmett used to be obsessed with bears, like he almost wanted to be one, and it's the biggest because Emmett is so big and--"

He had taken her hands and lifted them, bending closer so his breath hit her knuckles. "They're beautiful, Alice. You're really talented. You should sell them online or something."

He rubbed his thumb across another ring, which was simple and classy like Betsy and had "kindred spirits" engraved on the inside because _Anne of Green Gables_ made them both cry when they were kids (and okay, maybe it still did). 

"Who's this one for?" he smiled, pointing the first ring she ever made, a small circle on her pinkie finger, scarred and misshapen.

"Me," she admitted shyly. "It's the most warped but I kind of like it best." 

He lifted it to his mouth and kissed it. "That's my favorite then. If you made one for me, what would be on it?" 

She instantly responded, "A mirror," thinking of the way he reflected people's emotions, the way he made himself into what other people needed him to be, and his fingers, which had been examining her rings, went still. "I'm--I meant--" she started to stutter out a response, but Jasper shook his head. 

"No. That's fine. At least you didn't say a watermelon," he tried to joke as he turned away and she winced. He watched their custard melt for a moment, and Alice wanted to reach out to him, wrap herself around him and tell him he didn't have to do that, not for her, but then he stood and picked up their cups.

"Do you want to go?" Alice asked, feeling the rambling coming on and unable to stop it. "It is getting kind of late. You can take me back to your house for my car. Or I guess you could take me home and then you could drive my car to my house tomorrow. I need to work on my dress anyway, I have to make some major alterations tonight." When he had finished clearing off their table, trashing their melted custard and spoons and napkins, he had his mask back on again and Alice wanted to rip it off with her fingernails. "You are still going to take me tomorrow, aren't you?" she asked, in a small voice.

"Of course," he said, with a big smile. His eyes were blank. "I said I would, Alice. I don't mind driving your car over tomorrow, if that's okay with you." 

"Yeah, that's fine," she said quietly.

They got back in his car and he started to drive her home. Of course, they hit every red light on the way, and by the third one, she thought anything would be better than this wilted silence. Even fighting.

"Why were you looking at the website for Brown when I came over?" 

"I was accepted there," he said dully.

"But you're going to Stanford?" she confirmed, and when he nodded, she frowned and thought of why someone would sit in a dark house alone and numb their minds. Why people stare at some place they aren't going. "But you don't want to. You hate Stanford." 

"I thought you said you didn't see anything about my future!" He whirled to face her, the mask falling off to show his eyes, wide with fear again and with hurt, and then it came all at once, flattening her like sleep:

His two futures, playing out side by side on a split screen. Jasper in California, sweating through a button-down shirt in pre-law classes, blowing out his shoulder pitching a game his sophomore year, hanging out with his asshole fraternity brothers, trying not to be hurt when his parents didn't come to visit, dating another beautiful girl like Katie. They are both so locked into their parts; he never really knows her beyond her preferred spring break destination, what her spit tastes like. When he's alone, he gets high and drunk so he can ignore how much he hates law school and California, how tight the role he plays is growing around his neck. How good it would feel to let go of everything. He is a stranger to himself.

Jasper in Providence, and he's different. Like he's woken up, or the part of him that is chained down in the California world has gotten loose. She can see it in his face, the brightness in his pretty eyes, the way the gold and brown swirl together when he laughs, and he laughs more here. He's walking through the slush with a horrible striped hat on; pitching better than he ever has (not that Alice would know either way, except somehow she does); lying on a dirty floor in a dorm room, drinking coffee and laughing at someone she can't see; studying what he loves because he loves it. His parents don't come to visit and he talks to his friends about it and they tell him their own disappointments and he feels better afterwards.

She blinked back to now and Jasper was watching her out of the corner of his eye. They were on her block, driving up to her house. 

"I'm okay," she nodded. "I'm back now." She reached out and touched him, smoothed her hand on his cheek and he turned his mouth into her palm, but he won't look at her. "You don't have to go to Stanford, Jasper. You can do whatever you want. If you think you'll be happier at Brown--"

He pulled to a stop in front of her house and turned off the car. "Stop it," he glared at her. "Everyone in my family goes to Stanford, Alice. One of the dorms is named after my great-grandfather!" 

"But you won't be happy there--" she persisted. 

"You told me you see different futures all the time. If I make up my mind to be happy, I can be." He crossed his arms again and fixed her with that cold gaze that he had used back at the beginning of the night. 

Alice threw up her hands in frustration. "Because that's working so well for you now? You're so happy?"

"You wouldn't even wear a hat to school because you didn't want people picking on you and now you want me to turn my back on all of my family's expectations?" He asked it like nothing they had shared tonight meant anything, flat and cold as a sheet of ice, and she could only meet his ice with fire.

"You've been given a single life, Jasper, it only lasts for a few decades, maybe a century if you're really lucky. If you throw it away playing a part to make other people happy, you're an idiot and I shouldn't waste my time with you!"

She saw the words in front of her, scrawled in dark angry print over the windshield and they didn't fade away no matter how much she blinked.

"Can you please get out of my car?" Jasper said at last, flexing his hands around the wheel. 

She scrambled out, hugging her purse against herself and she leaned down to the window, waiting for him to say something cutting back to her. 

"I'll pick you up at seven tomorrow," he said to the windshield and then he drove away.


	6. Let's Start a Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROM. NIGHT. COMMENCES.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at describing clothes so I'll provide photos of my dress inspirations. 
> 
> [Alice](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/fJwxx-CaSqUmUPOPAaytaY9W_cM/fit-in/2048xorig/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-/2011/02/08/2/166/1668379/fc0eada9becb2753_75510551/i/Natalie-Portman-2005-Academy-Awards.jpg)
> 
> [Betsy](http://i2.wp.com/www.strictlyrobsten.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Kristen-Stewart-oscars-2010.jpg?fit=398%2C600)
> 
> [Esme](https://virtualpiano.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Best-Thing-I-Never-Had-Beyonce-Best-Online-Piano-Keyboard-Virtual-Piano.jpg)
> 
> [Moray](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/554821267df477df32ed0603/master/pass/met-gala-2015-rihanna-dress-breakout.jpg)
> 
> [Katie](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9f/41/e3/9f41e3a9a84657060d9bbcbf18b6c812.jpg)

Betsy ran so fast up the stairs to Alice's room that she face-planted and almost knocked out her two front teeth. 

"Betsy?" Mrs. McCarty's voice asked when she heard the telltale thump.

She cupped her fingers over her mouth, wincing. "I'm fine, Mrs. Mac!" She tried to force herself to walk slower down the hallway to Alice's room, but by the time she reached the door, she was scurrying like a crazed penguin. 

"PROM IS TONIGHT!" she sang as she flung open the door and hit her shin on the edge of the bed. "Ow, fuck!" She hopped on one foot and started singing again, "'I wanted to ring out the bells and to fling out my arms and to sing out the news! I have found her, she's an angel...' Really, is my voice that bad, Alice?"

Alice was lying in bed like a corpse, if a corpse ever wore a turquoise-and-purple reversible sequined sleep mask and a hand-painted pajama set in the same color palette.

Betsy looked around in shock - Alice's sewing area was in complete disarray, covered with bits of fabric and thread. It looked like she had scavenged parts from a bunch of different dresses, and there in the corner, was a work of art. The most beautiful dress Betsy had ever seen in her life. 

"Oh, Alice," Betsy gasped, dropping her own dress bag on the edge of the bed. "It's perfect. It's almost too pretty to waste on prom!" She crept over to Alice's side of the bed and hesitated before she poked her arm. "Alice?"

Alice shrieked and Betsy slammed herself into the wall. Then Alice sat up and pulled the earplugs out of her ears. "Who just touched me?"

"Me," Betsy said, rubbing her elbow. She was going to be a mass of bruises tonight. Hopefully Esme found blue-and-black skin attractive. "Sorry, you told me to come over at three to start getting ready."

Alice pulled off her sleep mask and stared at Betsy. "Is it four? I didn't go to sleep til this morning sometime," she said around a huge yawn. "Sorry, Bets. How was your night last night?" she asked, trying to work up her enthusiasm.

Betsy crawled over her and sat in the middle of the bed, glowing like a star. "Heaven in a four-poster bed. It. Was. Ev. Er. Ee. Thing. I stayed at Esme's til ten-thirty and my dad practically made me take a Breathalyzer when I got home because I was falling into everything, but it was literally the best night of my life."

"Oh good," Alice murmured, rolling over and burying her face in the pillow. "I'm so glad, Betsy."

"Now, I'm just worried about the dance tonight. Like, what if we run out of things to talk about? Or what if I trip-- okay, I'm definitely going to trip at some point, but what if I rip her dress?" She bounced a little when Alice didn't respond. "Alice, do you see me ruining her dress tonight?" 

"No," Alice responded sleepily. 

"Am I going to get my lip caught on her lip ring and spray blood all over her?"

" _Betsy._ Of course not."

Betsy frowned. "Okay, besty Alice, what's up? How did your night go? Was he horrible to you? Do you think you'll have fun at the dance? I don't think Esme would mind if you ditch him and hang with us-- she said she and Jasper never really had a connection anyway, not like we do," Betsy couldn't help preening a little. 

It didn't seem possible to Betsy that someone like Esme, who personified the meaning of lovely, could really like someone as plain and fumfering as her, but she did. She legit did and Betsy hugged that fact to herself again and again. The someone she liked also liked her.

For years, her dad* and her mom and Alice and Emmett and _their_ mom and her therapist had told Betsy in various ways that all the things that made her Betsy would seem like magic to the right person. That she could have a normal relationship in spite of her clumsiness, being trans, complete lack of interest of pop culture outside of K-dramas and nerdcore... She thought it was something adults (especially parents or quasi parental figures) and friends had to say, but it turned out it was actually true!

[*To be fair, her dad never said that in those exact words, because she was truly Anne Shirley being raised by Matthew Cuthbert. The conversation with her dad had gone more like...

Betsy: Dad? What made you fall in love with Mom? Didn't it seem weird that you were so different and you ended up together?

Charlie: Ah.. love... is... When you're with someone... you... When it's... Uh.... Love. It's very... 

(Long pause. A cat gives birth to six kittens under a deck. A team of surgeons separate a set of conjoined twins in Seattle. Land is cleared and houses are built. Empires rise and fall.)

Charlie: Ah. Special.]

Then Alice raised her head from the pillow and her brown eyes were so confused and sad that suddenly Betsy's long-awaited happiness seemed secondary to her friend's misery. 

"Oh, Alice, is he the worst? You're not upset with me, are you?" she asked, a needle of guilt piercing her heart. Surely Alice wasn't that offended by what she told her yesterday on the phone, about Alice being domineering with her vision-sanctioned advice. Really she should have told Alice years before, when it first started becoming an issue, rather than swallowing her irritation all this time. 

"No," Alice replied, rolling over and staring at the ceiling. "And he's not the worst. He might actually be--" She broke off with a gasp and started sobbing, all the while dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her sheet.

"Okay, okay." Betsy scooted closer, until Alice's head was next to hers and then she reached her hand out. She and Alice pressed their matching rings together. "Kindred spirit powers activate!" Betsy declared and Alice let out a watery chuckle. "Tell me everything."

After an hour of crying and face masks and a very, very long story, Alice felt emptied out. She sighed as she knelt at Betsy's pedicured feet and worked her pantyhose over her ankles-- Betsy was under strict instructions not to touch it because, well, she was Betsy.

"Wow," Betsy said. "Wow."

"You've said that, like, ten times now."

"I know, I'm just-- Wow." She shook her head again. "Okay. It makes sense that you like him, he's probably a challenge for you, since you both have gifts. Did you tell Emmett this whole story? Maybe he could give you better advice."

"He'd probably just make some joke about carrying a square watermelon."

"Huh? Oh, one of his quotes. So it's cool that you have the gift thing in common, but he kind of seems like he has a lot of issues. Is he one of those guys who's going to expect you to fix them all for him?"

Alice sighed. "I don't know. Part of me wants to, like, steamroll him and tell him exactly what his future should be, but I've decided," she gave Betsy a significant look, "that I'm not going to do that anymore." Betsy applauded. "Thank you, thank you. But how can we have a future if he goes to Stanford and continues his streak of perfection for four more years? I don't want a relationship with someone like that. And I let my temper run away with me," she cut Betsy off, shaking her head. "I left things so bad with him at the end of the night. If he has issues from his asshole parents always abandoning him for his brother, that's, like, the worst thing I could have said!"

"It can't be that bad if he's still taking you to prom," Betsy insisted. "You felt something when you kissed and he said he really liked you, right?"

"But where is it going to go after tonight? I can't see anything except for the stupid prom!" Alice grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. "How do I know what's going to happen?"

Betsy sucked her cheeks in and gave Alice a sympathetic look. 

"What?" Alice hissed. "Here, stand up," she pulled the pantyhose up to Betsy's waist and then stood up as well. 

"This is how the rest of us feel _all the time_ , Alice. You can't expect to know how everything in life is going to work out! Maybe Jasper will go to Stanford and fall in love with an Orange County version of Katie or maybe he'll go to Providence and become a male stripper to work his way through school. You have to shoot your shot if you're going to know for sure."

"I hate normality." Alice flopped down backwards on the bed. "And I hate uncertainty. This is why I didn't want to date, it all turns into a hellish nightmare of self-doubt and stress-acne."

"If you didn't go out with him," Betsy replied logically, "you wouldn't have had that night, or that kiss. You want to give those back?"

Alice touched her fingers to her mouth. "No," she admitted finally. "I do really like him, when he's being real. Even when we fight together or we're awkward, there's something-- I feel like he could be my best friend, like you are. Except different, because the thought of him as a male stripper makes me feel--well..." Betsy burst out laughing and Alice groaned and clapped her hands over her face. "I've got it bad, Bets."

"Yay! I'm thrilled! Assuming he turns out to be worthy of you, that is." 

Alice sighed. "I don't know if I'm that much of a prize. I'm bossy and nosy and stubborn and--"

"And the best friend I've ever had. My best friend for life," Betsy swore, grabbing Alice in a hug. "This is a good thing you're doing, Alice, putting yourself out there. And if it doesn't work this time," she pulled back and grabbed Alice's chin, "I want you to _keep doing it_!" 

"Someday my prince will come?" Alice asked, raising her eyebrow. 

"Exactly."

"Meanwhile I'm totally broken out from stress." Alice sat up and poked at her chin. "That face mask did jacksquat! How do you even get a zit this big overnight? It's like a marvel of modern engineering."

Betsy left at six-thirty, looking gorgeous in a strapless midnight blue gown with a mermaid skirt. Her hair was pulled up in a smooth ponytail that was totally her - they had rinsed the teal out of her hair because it clashed with the dress - and she was wearing a black silk wrap Alice's mom had loaned her and her own mother's tiny diamond studs. 

Now Alice was waiting in the living room, determined not to even glance out the window. Instead, she focused her attention on _Never Been Kissed._ Her mom apparently thought this was perfect prom night viewing, even though the romantic relationship in the film was kind of creepy since Drew Barrymore was supposed to be a high school student. Dating a teacher -- grotesque.

Her doorbell rang exactly at seven and she shouldn't have been surprised. It was just like him to be on time. 

She opened the door and gaped at him. 

Jasper studied her in his careful observant way for a long moment before he met her eyes. " _Wow_." 

"Oh. Thank you," she said faintly. She couldn't stop looking at him - he looked completely different from her visions of tonight and it was kind of unsettling. 

First, he wore a black suit and tie instead of dark blue-- which was perfect, actually, because it worked better with her dress. Second, and even more shocking, his blonde hair had been cut so short it was nearly buzzed. She would have told him not to if he had asked, but now she saw it only emphasized the darkness of his eyes and the length of his eyelashes, how fair and clear his skin was. 

"I bought a new suit. And I cut my- what, do you hate it?" he asked when she simply stared, her eyes rounded. He rubbed the back of his hand over his head. 

"No," Alice shook her head fervently. "You look beautiful, Jasper." 

He shifted his shoulders uneasily. "Um, thanks. I always wanted to cut my hair like this, so I figured-- But, you, Alice, you look... There aren't enough words for it. I can't--" He kept moving his eyes over her and his gaze made her want to twirl, right there in the doorway. 

Alice had to admit she had outdone herself. This particular dress was one she started in sophomore year and it had taken her all night to update it and make a few alterations. It was a sleeveless silk chiffon gown in a vibrant shade halfway between plum and raspberry that made her look darkly romantic, and she thought (hoped) even sexy. The deep V neckline stopped at the first of two velvet belts, right below her breasts. The second belt emphasized the curve of her hips below her tiny waist. Both belts were covered with black beads that caught the light and held it. 

She left her hair messy and disordered; her silver headband twisted into the shape of orchids was more for decoration than any attempt at organization. She was wearing jade earrings that Betsy had brought her back from one of her trips to visit her Mom in India.

She stepped aside and as he walked in, she slid her arm through his. He seemed uncertain and nervous, but she preferred that to the confidence he would have put on for anyone else. "We're going to have fun," she whispered and he nodded, rubbing his hand over his short hair again. 

"I want tonight to be everything you want, Alice. I--" 

And then her mother came in to take a million pictures, and he kept his arm around her shoulders the whole time, like he had the night before, and she found herself standing up straighter beneath it. 

When they got in the car, he surprised her again. "I went by Berry's and bought you some fries and another frozen custard, since you didn't get to eat much last night." He pointed to the cup in the cupholder and the bag on the floor. "But maybe that's too messy with your dress?" 

"No, that's perfect!" Alice exclaimed. "I'm starving. I sorta forgot dinner. And lunch." She grabbed a handful of fries and started eating as he began driving her car. "Hope my car isn't too messy for you." She glanced in the backseat. If she'd known they would end up driving this to prom, she would have cleaned up all those take-out bags. 

"No, it's fine. Anyone who can eat 212 french fries in five minutes is bound to have a lot of fast food detritus in their car."

"You shit!" She slapped at him as they both started laughing. "I can't believe Emmett told you that!"

"It was amazing! He said you weren't even four feet tall when you were nine and you out-ate grown men with children!"

She stuck a french fry in his mouth to shut him up. 

When they arrived at the dance, Jasper handed her a napkin to wipe the salt off her fingers before she got out. "Am I imperfect?" she joked as she touched her fingers to her hair.

"Immaculately so, if such a thing is possible." He helped her out and she fit her arm through his again, feeling the warmth of him against her nervous-cold fingers and sighing with pleasure.

Of course, the first people she saw walking into the hall were Moray and Katie, posed a few feet away from the voting table for prom queen and king. They looked great, Alice couldn't take that away from them. Moray had clearly found a dress modeled on the yellow Guo Pei gown Rihanna had worn to the Met Gala, complete with a train and fur trim. Her dark hair exploded in perfect ringlets. Katie wore a flowing white dress with a structured cape, and she looked like a couture angel. 

They pursed their lips in identical pouts and gave Alice a head-to-toe inspection. "I can't believe she didn't even wear pantyhose," Moray sneered as Alice and Jasper passed by.

"Fuck off, Moray. At least she didn't skin a collie to make her dress," Jasper said over his shoulder and they kept walking.

"Jasper! You quoted!" Alice beamed.

He gave her a sidelong smile. "Blame Emmett, he made us watch that movie on the bus ride to an away game."

They didn't vote for prom queen and king, though Jasper was one of the nominees for king. "Malcolm's winning, right?" he whispered and she nodded back. "Thank god," he said in a heartfelt voice.

Inside the reception hall, they immediately found Betsy and Esme. Esme wore a wedding dress with a sweetheart neckline, a corseted bodice covered in gold embroidery and crystals, and a full ivory skirt. Instead of looking over-the-top, it looked young and sweet. She had the face to carry it off, with her glowy caramel colored skin and bright green eyes. She and Betsy were already dancing as close as they could get with Esme's skirt between them, her arms linked around Betsy's neck and Betsy's around her waist. They were swaying back and forth, completely off beat to the fast thumping song, and every time Betsy stepped on Esme's skirt, Esme laughed and kissed her. 

"I think that's only encouraging her," Alice said as they stopped next to them. "Hi, Bets. Hi, Esme."

Esme smiled at her and then gave a mischievous look to Jasper. "Miss McCarty and Mister Whitlock," she said in her pretty French accent. 

"You look so pretty, Esme," Alice replied. "Thank you for being gracious about everything."

Jasper smiled at Esme and said something in French about her being "belle." Esme tilted her head at Alice and said something else and they went back and forth, Alice and Betsy watching them like a tennis match. Alice looked at Betsy and raised her eyebrows because, hola, Alice took three years of Spanish and Betsy took French, so couldn't she translate? 

"Did you just say something about an artichoke?" Betsy broke in finally and Esme started laughing.

She grabbed Alice and kissed her cheeks. "Of course you are forgiven! Things have come to their right finish, yes?" she asked, her eyes shining when she looked up at Betsy again. "Like the films, I want to have a true American prom! I love that color on you, Alice! So prettier than black."

"It really is, Alice!" Charlotte interrupted as she walked up, Peter in tow. "I'm so glad you guys came!" She snuck a glance at Jasper as he talked to Peter and then mouthed the word 'wow' to Alice and Alice felt a rush of pride, almost like he was hers forever, instead of a loaner for the night. 

"Should we dance?" Jasper asked when a new song started, and she wasn't sure how it would work, because he was so much taller than her, but it turned out when he said his mom made him learn to dance, he meant it. Of course, it shouldn't surprise her, he was good at pretty much everything he did. 

She hadn't danced in a crowd before, only alone in her room at night, and she loved it more than she could have imagined, the way the music was so loud it felt like it was inside her. When Jasper lifted her up, she could look out at the room and see all her classmates' heads and arms waving and nodding in unison. 

Plus, Jasper had this way of holding himself around her, making an invisible bubble so she never got stepped on or pushed over by anyone. It was like he kept both eyes on her and a third and fourth on the crowd. 

She has a flash: _the two of them dancing downfront at a concert, his arms looped around her and his lips on her head. She closes her eyes and feels the music flying and thrumming, her chest and her knees and her fingers. His body is so hot behind her and she licks sweet-tasting sweat off his neck as he guides her back and forth, trusting him to keep her safe._

He dipped and lifted and twirled her, and when they finally played a slow song, they both paused for a minute. He went to push his hair off his forehead and smiled sheepishly when he realized it wasn't there. 

She slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders and he fit her legs between his and after the briefest awkward pause, they started to sway, as natural as if they'd been doing it for years. Alice could talk to him without screaming over the music now, so she spoke for a minute or two about all the fashion trends on display in their classmates' dresses. He listened and laughed in the right places, but he wasn't saying much and that simply wouldn't do. 

"Will you tell me what you're feeling?" she asked. "I'll never get over how unfair it is that you always know."

He had his head bent down to hers and they were talking so low nobody could hear them, but he talked lower still. "I'm thinking I want you to have fun tonight. Are you?" 

"I am! But I didn't say thinking, I said _feeling_. Are you not having fun?" she asked, because he looked nervous again.

"No. I mean, I am. But--" he took a deep breath. "I wanted this night to be perfect for you. Do you feel like a part of everything?"

She watched the tension in his face, in his body, and then she leaned her head into his chest until she felt the fast pound of his heart. She had this feeling his skin would be hot under her lips and she wanted to taste it like she had in one of her futures and then she swallowed hard, overwhelmed by her own desires. 

She caught Betsy's eye as she and Esme danced by and Betsy gave her a look that meant "Put yourself out there" in best friend telepathy. Alice's hands grew cold from nerves and she fisted them against his neck, newly revealed and shades paler than his face. 

"Jasper, I'm sorry I said I shouldn't waste my time with you," she whispered, forcing herself to look up at him. "I tend to be sort of bossy-- my visions, sometimes I think I know better than everyone--"

"You probably do," he whispered back, low and husky.

"No." Alice shook her head. "People have to make their own way-- at least sometimes," she added with a smile. "And no matter what you decide to do in the future, I'm glad you let me see the real you this weekend. Do you think, maybe, you would want to keep doing that? I don't want you to change for me, or charm me like you do everyone else."

His eyes were guarded and his lower lip trembled briefly before he firmed it, cleared his throat. "I've never done that with you. I tried to last night after I got over being pissed, but you could tell. You're the first person I can say that about, other than Louise. She was my--"

"Your nanny from when you were a kid. I remember." Alice raised an eyebrow. "Louise didn't let you affect her?"

He made a face. "She said I sounded like her first ex-husband when I tried to sweet-talk her."

"She sounds like a smart cookie. I want to be her when I grow up."

"Maybe my fate is to end up with totally uncharmable badasses," he teased her.

Jasper slid his hands up a little higher, grabbed one of her hands and held it in his own. Her fingers were still cold and he frowned at them. Watching her, he lifted them to his mouth. "I promise I'll be myself as much as I can stand to be," he swore as he exhaled his warm breath on her jade green fingernails and Alice felt his heat run down her spine.

She wavered closer for an instant, suddenly weak, and he gave her the smallest smile before he swung her out and pulled her back into him. 

His wide hands were cradling what felt like her whole rib cage and she sucked in a greedy breath of his smell. "You're plenty charming without having to cheat and you know it, Whitlock." He grinned at that, and she hurried on, "You know I like you, and I'm hoping maybe this summer we can hang out. That sounds lame," she muttered, before she forced herself to continue. "I know you have stuff planned, probably--"

"No," he blurted, nodding his head hard. "No, I want to. That would be-- I would really like that, Alice. I was supposed to go to Russia to meet my parents after graduation and then to some resort for vacation, but I cancelled on them this morning. I want to hang out here with you." He looked at the wall behind her, chewing on his cheek. "I came here tonight hoping I could tell you what I'm going to do about school but I haven't been able to decide."

"Okay," she said softly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not tonight," he shook his head. "I need some time. But would you tell me about RISD? How did you decide to go there?"

"It was always my first choice. I started looking up art schools in, like, fourth grade because I knew that was what I always wanted to do. My parents didn't have enough money to let me take all the classes I wanted to, so I had to make do with learning stuff off YouTube and out of books. I'm dying to study glass, but I don't think I'll major in that." She couldn't help her enthusiasm even if part of her felt a little guilty. Had he ever been allowed to have a dream that was his, not something he'd picked to please his family or as a reaction to whatever Edward was doing?

"What are you going to study then?" He quirked a quiet smile at her and she felt her heart quake. " _Design_?"

She laughed. "Hmm, could you mean graphic design, apparel design, furniture design, industrial--"

"Are those all majors? You're going to have so much fun there, Alice."

"I know!" She banged her hands on his chest like he was a bongo. "So excited!" 

"But speaking of design..." He looked her over, running his fingers along the straps on her shoulders and her heart quaked. "Your dress is beautiful, but I thought it might be-- is it one of those funny ones like you had on last night? You know, is the other half polka-dotted or something?" he asked when she gave him a confused look.

"Oh, reversible. No, but it does have a special feature. I've been hoping you might kiss me, like you did last night, so I could show it off."

"Is that a fact?" He slowly put his arm beneath her and picked her up bridegroom style and she curled against him in a rush. She desperately wanted to giggle but suddenly there wasn't enough air in the room to manage it. He watched her for another second before they sank into each other and their eyes drifted closed. 

It was a definitive sort of kiss, straight from a movie close-up, and the sounds of prom disappeared from her ears. All she could only hear was the rush of her blood and all she could feel was his body under her hands, against her. It made that desire from last night rampage through her again - the urge to have him on top of her or underneath her. She wanted a full-body hug, she wanted nothing between them. This was their second date and she was so there already. 

In between the sultry heat of his torso under his crisp suit, the taste of his mouth, his smell, _oh holy Moses_ , his smell, it was hard to remember her own name, much less her dress. When he pulled away, they stared at each other for a long moment. Alice felt-- hot and opened up and loose, except for this tug in her chest that seemed to be pulling her back to him. 

She remembered suddenly they were in the middle of a crowded room filled with their entire freaking class and most of their teachers and she straightened as much as she could. 

"My dress," she reminded them both, and she guided his hands to the side of her bodice. "Here," she said, pointing to a tiny bump an inch inside the fabric. 

"I don't want to rip it," he said, but he fit his pinkie against her skin and pressed down on the button, and the tiny LED lights sewn into her bodice and skirt started to glow. 

Jasper gasped in delight. 

"You lit me up again," she laughed, pleased and proud, and he grabbed a chair and made her stand on it so he could see the full effect. 

"Alice, that's incredible!" He called friends and strangers over, and some of them probably thought it was tacky, but Betsy and Esme and Charlotte and the other ones who got her loved it. 

(Katie had watched their whole kiss and their dress reveal from over Alec's shoulder, but neither Alice nor Jasper knew or cared.)

Finally she put her arms around his neck again and directed him to the dance floor, and they made their way into a big random circle of their friends. 

There was Betsy and Esme, Charlotte and Peter, and Laurent, another of Alice's friends from art class, who had on a lime green suit that almost rivaled Emmett's Prince tribute from the year before, and his date, Irina, the other foreign exchange student from Poland. (She also spoke French, but so badly Esme kept giving Jasper pained looks behind her back.) And Garrett from Jasper's baseball team who turned out to be an editor on the school literary journal with Betsy, and his date, Quil, who was from the other high school in town and couldn't stop exclaiming how ritzy their dance was. 

"Do your parents have to take a credit check before you're admitted to school here? At the end of the night, do we get new iPhones as party favors?"

"We do?" Irina asked eagerly and Laurent sighed and shook his head. 

"If Moray wins prom queen I'm going to barf," Charlotte screamed over the song playing. 

"She won't!" Alice replied, moshing next to Jasper, her sweaty hair stuck to her forehead. "It's going to be Katie!" She grabbed his hand and squeezed it and he grinned with his whole face and pushed her hair off her forehead. It was probably spiky and stupid-looking now but from the way he held his body around hers, she knew he didn't care. 

"That's even worse. I hate that cunt!" Esme yelled back and everyone gasped, even Quil, because it was so un-Esme like and she threw her arms around Betsy and kissed her lavishly. "Anyone who fucks with my Bettina is a cunt!" she declared when she came up for air.

Jasper spun Alice around the room, her whole body shaking with joy in his grip. "Imagine if it could have been like this the whole time," he whispered in her ear and she held him tighter as the music crashed around them, wishing she could go back in time to freshman year and live all of her high school years, the ones she had been so eager to escape, over again, except with more crazy clothes and more custard. More of herself, and more of him.

Except maybe things couldn't have been like this until they were close enough to the end to have regrets, to want to let go of all their studied personas and just be themselves. The whole night had a bittersweet thread running through it, she thought later. Only a few weeks and high school would be over. These people would be gone, and even their friends could turn into strangers, faces they half-remembered in a photo posted online. (Some friends anyway - never her and Betsy.) 

"My whole school time, I think Moray is M-o-r-e-t," Irina yelled during another song. "But tonight, I see M-o-r-a-y on the paper for the votes. This is American name?"

"It's the name of an eel!" Alice cried as the music cut out and their section of the room held the silence for a beat and then roared with laughter. Moray was standing on the other side of the room, oblivious. 

The nominations for prom king and queen were read a few minutes later and when they got to her name, Garrett let out an ungodly screech and Quil bellowed in his loudest, deepest voice, "The shrieking eels always grow louder when they're about to feed on human flesh!"

"You know about the shrieking eels in America?" Irina asked suspiciously, and between that and the look on Moray's face on stage, Alice decided that all the teen movie cliches were right. Prom was the best night of her life (at least so far).


End file.
